


Friction

by DefyingNormalcy



Category: Wentworth (TV)
Genre: Angst, Domestic Fluff, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-05
Updated: 2017-03-09
Packaged: 2018-09-14 21:43:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 27
Words: 39,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9204632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DefyingNormalcy/pseuds/DefyingNormalcy
Summary: "Joan does not trust; she does not place her faith in anyone or anything but the greater good which has governed her life for as long as she can recall."





	1. Trust

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to the wonderful Ifitbelove and NoxIrradiata for their edits and encouragement!
> 
> This is an experimental/slightly darker piece than I normally write. I thank you all for your patience, encouragement and readership as I try something new. :)

 

Trust is a strange concept, Joan muses as she pours a healthy splash of vodka into her Deputy’s faux vodka soda. It requires complete vulnerability, a willingness to expose your underbelly to your potential enemy and hope for the best, and a proclivity for self destruction. Trust is a fickle thing. It is a worthless exchange of crippling emotion between lesser mortals, trust is a deathwish. Trust is something that lovesick fools promise to one another one moment whilst they each plot one another’s destruction in the next. 

 

Joan does not trust; she does not place her faith in anyone or anything but the greater good which has governed her life for as long as she can recall. No, she does not trust, but Joan does not deny the power that a false sense of trust can have over a conquest. 

 

Governor Ferguson gives Deputy Bennett a speech about trust and partnership. A speech that the friendless younger woman laps up like an eager child desperate to make her teacher proud, a speech that has the blue-eyed woman spilling the deepest secrets of her fellow officers within just minutes of Joan’s delicate prying. 

 

“I trust you as well Governor,” Deputy Bennett slurs. Her cheeks are pink and her curls escape haphazardly from the loose twist at the back of her head, framing her face like a halo. “I think…” she hiccups, “I think that we are going to be incredible together. From the moment I met you, I just knew.”  

 

Joan’s lips curl and she leans well into the personal space of her prey. “As did I Vera - and please, call me Joan when we are alone like this.” 

 

“Joan,” Vera breathes. Joan cannot help the shiver that runs down her spine as her name leaves her Deputy’s full lips; the younger woman’s submission is as impressive as it is enticing. 

 

Joan’s fingers reach out to touch an errant curl and tuck it neatly behind Vera’s ear. 

 

Her Deputy’s eyes flutter and Joan can see it already. Can see the delicate underbelly of this petite woman splayed out before her, all hers for the taking. She can see her victory written in the flutter of Vera’s thick eyelashes and the pretty pink of her cheekbones, can feel it in the way that her lithe body sways towards her, into her touch. 

  
Yes, Joan Ferguson knows exactly the power that a false sense of trust can have over people. She feels Vera capitulate; another conquest successfully and carefully acquired. 

 


	2. Faith

 

Vera is an awfully small woman; her body is compact and her head is angled perpetually towards the ground when she speaks with anyone. Her limbs seem to always curl in on themselves in an effort to take up even less physical space and her steps are quick and precise, never daring to stray too far ahead of the rest of her body. Her voice is like honey sliding over tinkling glass; impossibly saccharine and too soft to ever leave a proper impression. Best of all, is how submissive and dangerously telling her doe eyes are. They quickly become Joan’s favourite feature. 

 

Joan revels in the physical strength and stature that she has over her Deputy. She revels in the way that Vera’s quick feet must work even harder to keep up with her long strides. Joan relishes in how Vera’s docile voice and eyes affirm before following her orders so exactly. 

 

It takes less than three weeks for Joan to convince Vera of Matthew Fletcher’s incompetence. It takes just a few weeks more for her to see Will Jackson’s self destructive tendencies for what they are. By the end of her second month as Governor, Vera, unsolicited, begins to hand Joan weekly reports on all of the officers under her command, highlighting their strengths and weaknesses, pointing out the smallest of infractions and their frequencies. 

 

Vera repeats her words of trust and partnership. Cites their working relationship, the greater good that they serve together, as she betrays colleagues that she’s known and cared about for the last decade. Colleagues who had not bothered to spare Vera a single benevolent thought in all the years that she had been working with them. Joan notices how Vera’s eyes light up as she does this and she feels a deep, thrilling sense of pride over Vera’s actions. She sees unparalleled potential in her protegee and it makes her heart flutter. 

 

Joan will teach her  _ everything.  _

 

Joan rewards her Deputy for her initiative. For her devotion and for her unwavering faith with drinks in her office each evening after Vera delivers her report. A new game begins; Vera comes to her office at the end of every Friday shift, report in hand. Joan pretends to be surprised and thanks Vera for her continued dedication to their work together; Vera’s cheeks darken, her doe eyes light up, and she dips her head to try and hide the smile that breaks out across her angelic face. 

 

Joan sips the soda to Vera’s vodka and watches, enraptured, as her Deputy exposes more and more of herself to Joan - pointing out that she not only has a soft underbelly but a soft back, a soft pair of well-sculpted arms, a soft pair of shapely legs, a soft, golden neck, which she exposes repeatedly by loosening her tie and unbuttoning her uniform shirt. 

 

Vera’s skin gleams in the dim lighting of Joan’s immaculately kept office. Joan muses about the gentle irony of such soft, delicate looking skin laying overtop what appears to be sturdy and well-defined sinew. It begs to be touched, possessed,  _ consumed _ . 

 

Her hand reaches out. 

 

“I’m so very proud of you Vera, of what we have accomplished together,” she says quietly and she could swear that her Deputy leans the remaining few millimeters into Joan’s touch. 

 

Cool, pale fingertips intercept hot, reddening flesh and a spark ignites between two lonely women.

 


	3. Ownership

 

The first thing that Joan notices when she sits down to take Rita Bennett’s hand is how very different her daughter is from her. Vera is soft, warm skin and shining, honest blue eyes. Rita is dry, brittle; she is cold and her eyes betray the jealousy of her own flesh and blood that she has locked up in her twisted heart. Vera is sweet sincerity and her mother is bitter deception. Joan dislikes this woman the moment that she sees her. She  _ loathes _ her the moment that she has to touch her. 

 

She leans forward and holds Rita’s hand close to her chest. 

 

_ To truly understand your enemy, to be able to defeat them once and for all, you must get inside of their skin _ . Her father’s words ring loudly in her mind as her bare fingers slide over their adversary. 

 

“I will not allow you to speak to Vera like this ever again. She does not belong to you anymore, she is mine,” Joan proclaims. 

 

Joan will destroy her. 

 

She places Rita’s hand back on the bed and smiles at the old woman who she has just branded. Rita looks back up at her in fear, her eyes travel between Joan and her daughter and the weight of Joan’s words sink in fully. 

 

Joan  _ will _ destroy her. And Vera will help her. 

 

“I’m sorry about Mum,” Vera apologizes into her wine glass. They are seated on the couch and enjoying the last of the bottle that Vera had opened for them tonight. “She can be…,” she searches for the right words, “just, well, herself I suppose.” 

 

Joan regards her Deputy thoughtfully. Her skirt is wrinkled and bunched up and exposing more skin than Joan’s hungry eyes have ever seen before. Her hair is down now, messy curls frame an angelic yet frowning face, and her cheeks and lips are red from their shared bottle of wine. 

 

She is beautiful, Joan realizes. 

 

“Vera,” Joan breathes, “Your mother does not deserve the love and kindness that you are showing to her.” 

 

Her hand is resting between them on the couch. It itches to connect with Vera, to feel the heat of her flesh; ever since its brief introduction to her Deputy’s neck several weeks ago, it has longed to be connected to Vera’s skin every moment that it is in its presence. 

 

Vera speaks and Joan’s hand clenches. “I just..” she shakes her pretty little head and turns her body so that she’s just inches from Joan, from her wanting hand, “It means so much having you here. Professionally, and personally, really, I can’t thank you enough Joan. Thank you for your trust, for your friendship,” she whispers. 

 

Her hand reaches out to gently grasp Joan’s wrist. Joan feels piercing heat at the ends of Vera’s fingertips as they tentatively touch her, she feels a tightness in her chest and a feeling of intoxication that has nothing to do with the beverage she is consuming sweep through her. She looks up from their mingled flesh to see Vera staring at her, blue eyes shining with something far deeper than mere appreciation. 

 

She is mine, Joan reminds herself. 

 

Her wrist turns and her hand envelops Vera’s. She hears the slight gasp escape from her Deputy’s lips. She sees it as Vera’s full lips part, as her beautiful eyes darken. Joan leans well into Vera’s personal space and dips her head so that the tip of her nose and lips tickle the taunting skin of Vera’s neck. She inhales deeply and commits to memory Vera’s unique scent; the sweetness of her perfume from its application hours ago, and the slight saltiness of her dried sweat and exhaustion. Joan closes her eyes and represses a shudder as her lips trace a delicate, deliberate trail over a particularly defined vein. 

 

“You are so much more than her caretaker,” she whispers. Vera swallows and Joan feels her neck bulge in response. “She doesn’t appreciate you. She hardly even loves you and you deserve more Vera. You deserve to be loved. Truly loved.” Joan’s tongue darts out to tickle the spot just under Vera’s tiny ear. 

 

“Joan?” Vera moans out loud. 

 

“You don’t need to suffer. To waste away while looking after her. You can take control Vera, you just need to have the courage,” Joan’s lips caress hypersensitive skin as she speaks the words directly into her Deputy’s ear. 

 

Vera pulls back, regards Joan with a look so full of longing that Joan nearly falls backwards from the force of it. 

 

“I have the courage,” she affirms. 

  
Joan’s hand releases itself from Vera’s grasp and comes up to cup her trembling chin. She holds it firmly in her grasp and smiles proudly at her protegee. “I know that you do,” she says fondly.  

 


	4. Affirmation

 

The phone call comes shortly after midnight. 

 

“Oh god, oh god Joan, I’m a monster! I-I...I did it, oh god I should be locked away!” Vera is sobbing hysterically and begging for Joan to tell her what to do. 

 

Vera had done it, she had found her courage. And she was now submitting herself fully to Joan’s will, capitulating to the false web of trust that Joan has weaved for her. Joan’s stomach clenches. “Vera, remain calm. I am coming now,” she says. 

 

Vera’s front door is unlocked and so Joan lets herself in. She follows Vera’s broken sobs and gasps until she is standing in the doorway of her mother’s bedroom once again. The old woman’s ugly, lifeless face is turned slightly, facing Joan. There is a look of knowingness etched into her worn features. 

 

_ Yes, _ Joan thinks, _ I did this to you, just as I said that I would _ . 

 

She allows herself a moment of triumph before announcing her presence to Vera, who is sobbing and hunched over her mother’s worthless form. She drags Vera’s lithe body up, and practically carries her off to her bathroom where she deposits her Deputy on the countertop while she goes about filling the tub with hot water and a generous squeeze of bubble bath. 

 

Vera continues to cry and sniffle; she draws her knees up to her chest and leans her head back against the mirror as the gravity of her grief crashes down on her. 

 

“Joan I need to turn myself in,” she whimpers. 

 

Joan feels sweat gathering at the small of her back from the heat of the water and her proximity to her Deputy. She removes her sweater and stands before Vera in a black tank. She folds the soft material and places it next to Vera on the countertop then stands directly in front of her sobbing protegee. 

 

“Vera, you have done nothing wrong,” she croons, “You found your courage. You rid yourself of your abuser, and I am so proud of you my darling girl.” 

 

Vera sobs even harder and releases her knees. Her hands reach for Joan and Joan gives in to the wordless plea for affection. Vera’s wet cheeks rest between Joan’s neck and her shoulder, her hair tickles Joan’s chin and her hands wrap around Joan’s back. 

 

Joan nuzzles the top of Vera’s head and she feels the younger woman squeeze her tighter in response. “I will protect you. You will say that after administering your mother’s regular medication that you came to my house for dinner, you drank too much to be able to drive therefore I made you stay the night. Upon coming home in the morning, you found that your mother had expired overnight. I will dispose of the evidence that might challenge this, and I will corroborate your story.” 

 

Joan feels Vera nod obediently into the crook of her neck. “Good girl,” Joan praises, “Come now, get in the tub, you will feel better once you are clean.” 

 

She pulls away from Vera and instead of feeling a flood of relief, she finds that her skin is curiously tingling from the loss of contact. 

 

Vera eyes the tub and then Joan. “Umm, do you want me to get in the tub right now?” she asks timidly. Her hands reach for the buttons on her shirt, indicating her willingness to expose herself to Joan if that is truly what Joan wants. 

 

Joan feels her knees become weak at such a display of wanton submission. 

 

“Yes,” she breathes, and she can hear how ragged her voice is. She can feel the strain in her chest as she wills herself to breath through her nose, and not her open, salivating mouth. 

 

Vera is silent as she removes each article of clothing, never once breaking eye contact with Joan. Joan flares her nostrils, she clenches her hands to steady their trembling and she grinds her teeth to prevent her jaw from becoming slack. When Vera has kicked away her panties and skirt, Joan reaches out to grasp the petite woman on either side of her slim waist and pull her to the edge of the countertop. Hard. She hears the telltale squeak of bare skin rubbing roughly against the smooth surface and she shudders as she imagines her Deputy’s beautiful skin becoming red and raw from the exertion. 

 

Vera’s lips part and her tear-stained cheeks flush deliciously. Joan’s hands grip her Deputy’s waist, hard, and she dips her head to sample the skin of her neck. “You’re mine, aren’t you?” she asks, “You would do anything I asked of you, wouldn’t you?” 

 

“Y-yes,” Vera says, and fresh tears run down her pretty face. “I would do anything for you Joan, anything.” She wraps her arms around Joan again, and this time, her legs as well. Joan can feel her Deputy’s moistening cunt press against her belly and she bites down against the sinew in response. 

 

“And I would do anything to protect you Vera, you know this, don’t you?” she whispers against her own teeth marks in Vera’s skin. 

 

“Yes,” Vera groans.

 

“We are a team Vera, never forget that,” Joan commands. 

 

“Never,” Vera responds. 

 

Reluctantly, Joan parts from her trembling protegee. She pulls Vera off of the countertop and leads her to the tub. She watches as Vera descends into the hot water, as thick foam clings to her muscular limbs and makes them glisten beautifully. Joan kneels next to the tub and cups Vera’s flushed face. 

 

“Wash yourself. Thoroughly. I will take care of everything else,” she orders. 

 

“Wha-” 

 

“Shh.” Joan’s thumb traces Vera’s lower lip. “You at my house right now. Sleeping in my bed, without a care in the world.” Her other hand reaches for the bar of soap, she pushes it into Vera’s hand. “Bathe. Then go to bed. I will take care of everything,” she promises. 

  
Vera accepts the offered bar of soap. “Yes Joan,” she whispers. 

 


	5. Formation

 

Vera is reclined against her pillows and clad in a simple white nightgown when Joan walks into the room. Her chestnut curls are still damp and her face has been scrubbed clean of her tear-streaked makeup. Joan sits on the edge of the bed and can detect a delicate whiff of Vera’s usual perfume and she is delighted by the fact that her Deputy thought to apply it again in Joan’s presence.

 

“Better?” Joan asks as she runs her long fingers through Vera’s hair.

 

Vera closes her eyes and arches her back in response. “Much, thank you,” she says sweetly.

 

Vera’s hand curls around Joan’s forearm, her rounded fingertips trace the smattering of birthmarks and moles against the ivory skin and Joan suddenly finds breathing to be a difficult task. It’s been years, long and several, since anyone has touched her like this. Joan feels her heart hammering against her sturdy chest. Vera smells so clean, her skin is so warm, her eyes are so open and trusting; she feels heat rising in her stomach, feels it splashing against her speeding heart.

 

“Joan?” Vera’s voice is thick with impending sleep. “If I’m in your bed right now, where are you?”

 

Joan licks her lips and the hand in Vera’s hair stills. Vera’s eyes flutter and she sits up, pulling Joan’s forearm around her and trailing her fingertips up to rest against Joan’s shoulder.

 

“Are you with me?” Vera asks, and Joan is nearly overwhelmed by the hope in her Deputy’s tone.

 

“Obviously, since it is my house,” she answers after a moment.

 

Vera smiles at her but not unkindly. Her other hand comes up and nervously tucks Joan’s thick hair behind her ear. Joan surprises herself by allowing this touch.

 

“Are you _with_ me?” Vera repeats.

 

Joan concedes to herself that were they in her house, she most definitely _would_ be with her Deputy. Images of Vera’s bronzed skin against her dark grey sheets are suddenly filling her mind with rapidly increasing carnality. She clenches her jaw to prevent a moan from escaping, her eyes dart around the tiny room nervously.

 

Vera pulls back slightly to lift her nightgown above her head. It lands on the floor next to them and the action causes Vera’s damp hair to become even messier; her exposed nipples stand out provocatively and she places one of Joan’s hands overtop a small, firm breast.

 

“I want you to be, I want you to hold me close and make me feel safe. I want you to make me forget all of this,” Vera pauses as she fights back further tears from falling, “Please say that you are. Please?”

 

Joan’s hand cups the swell of Vera’s breast, her thumb circles Vera’s rigid nipple and her whole body aches with the desire to wrap her lips around the delicate coral-coloured flesh. She feels Vera shudder and lean forward as her thumb brushes against it again and again, she feels a tightness in her own lower belly at the sight of Vera’s unwavering trust.

 

“I’m with you,” Joan says finally. “I am always with you,” she growls as she leans forward to sink her teeth into the delectable skin of her Deputy’s collar. “Never forget that Vera. You are mine and I am always with you.”

 

“Yes,” Vera groans.

 

Later, just after Vera cries out against Joan’s shoulder, after her cunt clenches around Joan’s fingers and as her blunt nails dig into Joan’s upper back, Joan feels a seismic shift in their dynamic. She withdraws her fingers from Vera’s shaking body, wipes them on the sheets and pulls Vera’s sweaty back against her still-clothed front. She wraps her arms around Vera’s quivering middle and nuzzles her flushed neck; she feels Vera’s breathing steady, she watches as her eyes flutter and her body succumb to sleep.  

 

What transpired this evening was necessary, an act of sacrifice for the greater good, a farce in order to further entangle Vera in her web of false trust; this is what Joan tells herself to will her trembling hands to still. This is what she silently repeats to herself in order to will her pounding heart to calm.

 

She vigorously ignores the nagging ache deep within her that has nothing to do with the stickiness of her own pulsing and deliberately overlooked sex.

 


	6. Morass

 

The game changes. The rules become more complicated. Fridays reports are no longer rewarded with a simple drink at Joan’s desk. Vera begins to bring her reports directly with her to Joan’s house, where Joan cooks elaborate meals for her, serves her as many glasses of fine wine as she wants, then slowly and methodically brings her to orgasm after life-altering orgasm. 

 

Joan does not kiss Vera. She does not use her mouth anywhere on her above her taut neck. She allows Vera’s hands to wander across her back as she fucks her into the firm mattress of her king sized bed, but she does not allow Vera to touch her intimately. She does not remove anything beyond her trousers and shirt, and often not even that, when they are together. She does not allow herself to know what it feels like to have all of Vera pressed up against all of her - the greater good does not need Joan to know what that feels like. The greater good merely dictates that she keep Vera faithfully devoted to her, and so she does. 

 

She makes Vera gasp and moan, and sometimes even shriek, her loyalty to Joan. She makes her jaw slack, her knees weak, her back arch, and her legs fall open. Each touch against Vera’s skin serves as a reminder to Vera who she belongs to. 

 

_ She is mine. She is mine. She is mine _ . Blood pounds in Joan’s ears each time she throws her Deputy down onto her mattress, rips her clothing off of her sculpted limbs, and takes control of the younger woman’s pleasure. 

 

She does not allow Vera to stay the night. Ever. When Joan has had her fill of Vera, and every inch of her delicious body, she silently makes her way to the bathroom to wash up. That is always Vera’s cue to leave. And Vera, being the dedicated and obedient protegee that she is, never disappoints Joan. 

 

She does not allow herself to remember what it felt like to hold her Deputy against her. She does not dwell on what it had felt like to have Vera’s hands overtop the arm that curled around Vera’s middle, what it had felt like to feel Vera’s flesh overtop her own. Dwelling on these things will not serve the greater good. Dwelling on them is a fool’s errand, and Joan is no fool. 

 

Joan smears her wet chin and cheeks against Vera’s inner thigh, the juices from Vera’s spent cunt spreads out against the sweaty skin and Joan pauses to suck them off of the firm muscle. Above her, Vera is panting and clutching her chest; her skin shines with abundant perspiration and her hair is a hopeless, matted mess. She is beautiful, Joan thinks, but not for the first time and certainly not for the last time. 

 

There is something ethereal about watching her Deputy come, something divine in the feeling of her whole body convulsing around Joan’s fingers, in the feeling of being  _ inside _ of this vulnerable woman, something distinctly beautiful about this act of ultimate submission on Vera’s part that Joan cannot quite put a name to. 

 

“Joan,” Vera croaks after a few minutes of post-orgasmic bliss, “Come here.” 

 

Joan raises a finely sculpted brow. She raises her upper body to its fullest height as she sits back on her trouser-clad legs. Vera’s legs fall off from their place on her tank-clad shoulders. 

 

Vera looks up at her hopefully and Joan can feel fresh sweat break out across her forehead. 

 

“I don’t follow orders Vera. That is not how this goes,” she warns. 

 

Vera licks her lips and Joan can see the wheels turning behind her wide eyes. She sits up and her hands come to rest on Joan’s middle, where trouser meets tank. Her cheek rests on Joan’s broad shoulder. Joan bites the inside of her cheek to prevent herself from gasping as Vera’s warm cheek intercepts her heated flesh. 

 

“I’m sorry, of course I didn’t mean to order you around.” Vera’s voice slides like honey across Joan’s jagged exterior. “I just wanted you near me,” she rubs her cheek against the bare skin of Joan’s shoulder and exhales, “I need to feel you Joan. Will you let me make love to you? Please?” 

 

Something inside of her snaps, and suddenly Joan is pushing Vera off her roughly so that Vera falls against the elegant headboard of her bed. Her chest feels tight and hot and cold at the same time and she is overwhelmed with the immediate need to cleanse herself of Vera’s bodily fluids. 

 

“I think it’s time that you go home now Vera,” Joan says icily. She’s already swinging her legs off of the bed and slipping her feet into her slippers. “You may see yourself out.” 

 

She marches over to her ensuite bathroom and vigorously begins washing her hands, scrubbing, letting scalding water flow over them, in an effort to remove all traces of Vera from her. She splashes the hot water onto her face and begins to lather up her lips, her chin, her cheeks; the taste of soap on the inside of her lips is unpleasant and it makes Joan’s eyes water, but it is effective in ridding the taste of her Deputy from her mouth. The mouthwash is last, and Joan purposely swallows some of the stinging liquid before spitting the rest of it out. 

  
In the mirror, she can see Vera’s scratch marks all along her upper arms and shoulders. She brings a firm fingertip up to one of them and presses down. Hard. Her shoulder instinctively reflexes and Joan pulls her finger away; its pale tip is stained with the faintest smear of her own blood. 

 


	7. Fire

 

The following Friday’s report is on Joan’s desk at the end of her day shift. The manilla folder is a stark contrast to the dark, polished wood of her desk. Her jaw tightens in displeasure and she makes quick work of summoning Vera to her office. Two minutes pass between when she radios for her Deputy and when she arrives; Joan spends the time pacing her office, forcing her breathing to remain calm and measured.

 

Vera’s arrival is announced by a firm, “Governor?”

 

“Sit,” Joan commands. She points to the chair opposite her desk.

 

Vera regards her with a harshness that Joan did not believe the younger woman to be capable of. “I would rather stand, thank you,” she says.

 

Joan’s blood boils at Vera’s insubordination.

 

“What is going on here, hmm? I’m sensing some tension.” Joan remains standing as well.

 

“Tension?” Vera repeats incredulously. “Gosh, that took you a while to pick up on.”

 

“I’m sure I don’t know what you are referring to,” Joan says stubbornly.

 

Vera regards Joan carefully before pulling the previously offered chair out and sitting in it. She clasps her hands in her lap and crosses her legs, causing her skirt to ride up legs that Joan knows to be as soft as silk.

 

Joan clears her throat and waves at the manilla folder on her desk. “Explain.” She rounds the desk and sits in her own chair. She takes her time straightening her jacket and adjusting her cardholder.

 

Vera eyes her patiently. “Do you trust me?” she asks once Joan runs out of miscellaneous items to straighten out.  

 

Joan scoffs. “Vera I have told you before, we are a team.”

 

“You’re avoiding the question,” Vera says perceptively, “I trust you, but do you trust me?”

 

Joan does not trust; she does not place her faith in anyone or anything but the greater good, and Vera can finally see that. Joan feels her carefully crafted web begin to fall apart, thread by thread.

 

“Is that why you won’t let me touch you?” Vera asks quietly, but Joan can hear the raging, turbulent emotion in the younger woman’s words. “Do you think that I would try and hurt you?”

 

Joan clears her throat and tries again. “Vera -”

 

“Please,” Vera implores, “I need to know if you trust me. I need you to answer that question Joan.”

 

Joan remains silent. She does not trust. Trust is a farce. Trust is for fools, and Joan is no fool.

 

Vera shakes her head in disbelief and her eyes become glossy with tears. “This was all a lie. I thought that we were a team...I thought that I was yours,” she says sadly. The weight of her realization comes crashing down on her and Joan feels a white-hot panic grip her heart in response.

 

“No, Vera, that’s not true,” she insists. The kisses she had placed all along her Deputy’s lithe body were not a lie, nor were the touches she had granted her; they were meticulously planned, perfectly executed. Vera was _hers,_ undoubtedly. Surely?

 

Vera considers her mentor’s words, then silently stands up to walk towards the door. Joan watches curiously as her Deputy locks the door, rather than leave the office as she expected that she might.

 

Vera walks back to Joan’s desk and sinks to her knees in front of her Governor.

 

“Do you trust me?” she whispers as her hands lovingly trace Joan’s upper thighs.

 

“Vera, you are being unreasonable,” Joan sputters. Her mind is short circuiting at the feel of her Deputy’s hands against her clothed legs, at the image of her kneeling, so beautifully submissive, between her legs, staring at her cunt so hungrily. She wonders briefly if she is being tested. If the greater good has sent her this challenge to see if she can master it. Vera’s gaze becomes more determined and Joan feels herself pinned to her seat by it.

 

“I am going to remove your trousers, do you trust me?” Vera asks. _Please don’t push me away,_ she silently begs and she nearly cries with joy when she does not receive any resistance from Joan. Her hands are gentle and efficient in unzipping Joan’s trousers and in easing them down her wide hips; she could swear that she feels Joan lift her hips ever so slightly as Vera pulls them to her ankles.

 

Vera pauses to look at Joan in all her glory. Wide, pale hips and thick, sturdy thighs; nestled between them, dark curls and reddening flesh, wet and every bit as gorgeous, as erotic, as Vera had spent these last agonizing months imagining. She leans forward and rests her cheek against Joan’s thigh to look unabashedly at Joan's womanhood.

 

“Do you trust me?” Vera whispers against Joan’s exposed flesh. She turns her head to trail her lips against ivory thighs and she delights in their softness. She trails them higher to bypass the soaked curls of Joan’s sex and flutter against her rounded, shirt-clad stomach.

 

Joan is breathing heavily now. Her hands are clutching the armrests on her chair and her tongue is darting out to lick her lower lip. Vera is looking at her like she is something worthy of worship and Joan hates herself for wanting to give in to Vera’s tender demands as badly as she does.

 

Vera nuzzles Joan’s mound and repeats herself. “Joan, do you trust me?” At Joan’s repeated silence, Vera tries, “When you said that I deserved to be loved, did you mean it?”

 

She did and she does, but she doesn’t want to think of herself as a part of that equation. Vera deserves to be loved, Vera has the capacity for it, she does not. She often wonders if she ever did. Vera is different. Vera is innocent, she is sunshine and tenderness and joyful laughter in the persistent darkness of Joan’s life.

 

“Vera,” Joan breathes. “Vera, ooh!” Vera’s lips continue to plant delicate, deliberate kisses all along her thighs.

 

She is beautiful, Joan reminds herself and something dark and twisted inside of her mocks her for constantly dwelling on that thought. She dwells on it still. Her mind is a spinning wheel stuck in a puddle of thick, hot mud, turning restlessly with no relief. Vera is beautiful. Vera _is_ beautiful. Vera is _beautiful._

 

Vera has never looked so  beautiful as she does now with her high cheekbones wedged between Joan’s thighs and her gorgeous blue eyes staring up so openly at her from above Joan’s cunt.

 

“I think that you did mean it Joan. And I think that you want to trust me, but you don’t know how to. I’m going to show you how to, and you’re going to let me,” Vera says while her heart pounds at her own brazenness. “I want to be loved by you, only you,” Vera confesses against Joan’s sex, confirming Joan’s greatest fear. “And I want you to let me love you in return.”

 

Vera tugs Joan’s pants down her legs fully and discards them. She shifts on her knees and looks up at Joan expectantly.

 

Joan is panting now, her cheeks are red and her eyes are wild. A few hairs have escaped her immaculate bun and are framing her handsome face.

 

She is beautiful, Vera thinks. “You’re beautiful,” she says just before lowering her mouth against Joan’s wet cunt.

 

No one has ever called her that before, not a lover, not even a friend; Joan has never had them, she has never wanted them. She doesn’t know if Vera qualifies as either a lover or as a friend, but she does know that she wants Vera in this moment more than she has ever wanted anything or anyone in her entire life. She wants Vera with a fierceness that rivals any other conquest she has ever successfully ensnared. She wants Vera in a way that causes the hairs on the back of her neck to stand up and the muscles of her lower abdomen to clench. She wants Vera in a way that she _knows_ is dangerous. Self-destructive. _Foolish_.

 

She wants her anyway.

 

She bites down so hard on her lip that she draws blood as Vera’s firm tongue explores her. Vera is as gentle and generous as any lover could be, not that Joan has anything to compare this to. No one has ever touched her like this, not Jianna, not the smattering of women since. Joan has never allowed one of her prey to flip the script like this before and become her predator, until now, until _Vera_.

 

Vers may be inexperienced, but the tenderness of her actions, the purity of them, coupled with her usual, impeccable attention to detail has Joan’s eyes rolling backwards and her back arching off of the soft leather of her chair. It isn’t long until Joan’s hips are stiffening and her head is falling back as Vera’s sweet, gentle tongue is coaxing from her an orgasm so powerful that Joan momentarily forgets how to breathe.

 

“That was so beautiful Joan,” Vera kisses against her swollen, spent clit. “I never want to stop loving you like this,” she mumbles as she nuzzles Joan’s soft, damp curls.

 

Joan feels the weight of Vera’s words against her heaving chest. Shaking and covered in a thin sheen of perspiration, Joan leans forward to push Vera’s mouth away from her. Vera stumbles, falling back on her knees and looks up at her, confusion and hurt are etched into her pretty features, but more than anything, disappointment.

 

“Get out, now,” Joan barks as she tugs her panties and trousers back on.

 

Vera stands and stares down at Joan’s trembling figure. “No. You don’t get to order me out of here, not now, and not after this,” she says bravely.

 

“Vera,” Joan growls in warning.

 

“We are going to talk about this Joan. Whether you like it or not.” Vera hastily wipes her lips and chin and bites down on her trembling lower lip.

 

Joan smoothes her trousers and straightens her tie. “N-not now Vera,” she hisses. She can feel herself coming undone from the inside out; she can’t face Vera now, she can’t face _any_ of this. “Please,” she says softly, and it is the first time that Joan has ever begged anyone for anything in her life, “please leave.”

 

Vera’s eyes widen in shock. She reaches her hand out to extend some measure of comfort to the formidable woman in front of her, but recoils when she notes how Joan’s shoulders sag and her cool brown eyes dart around nervously.

 

“I...I’m sorry Joan,” she falters, “I didn’t mean…” Vera trails off hopelessly and spins on her heel.

 

Joan does not watch Vera’s retreating form. Around her, the last threads of her once-immaculate web come apart; she feels each of them snapping and falling against her pounding, aching heart.

 


	8. Burn

 

The knock at Joan’s door is at once, haunting and predictable. Joan considers ignoring it initially, but thinks better of it when she considers that there is still a game to be played. There is still a match to be won. And Joan Ferguson is not a quitter.

 

Vera is furious. She pushes past Joan with tear-streaked cheeks and glossy, red-rimmed eyes. Her hair is wild and frames her face like a flame around its candle wick.

 

“You have been ignoring my calls all evening. We need to talk. Now,” Vera asserts. Her lip trembles and she rests her hands on her hips in the middle of Joan’s kitchen. She looks at her mentor expectantly. “W-well?” she asks.

 

Joan lifts her head and purses her lips. “I believe that you are the one who came barging into my home this evening. Therefore, it is you who clearly has some explaining to do,” she says. Her thighs clench uncomfortably as Vera’s tongue darts out to wet her lip; Joan is reminded of how exquisite it had felt when that same tongue had dragged its length across her lower lips. Joan hates herself for drawing the obvious comparison between the two actions.

 

Vera’s eyes harden and the sinew in her neck tightens noticeably.

 

“Enough! No more bullshit. No more speeches about our unity, about how you’d do anything to protect me. Or about how I’m yours, when you can hardly bring yourself to tell me that you’re mine. I’m not buying any of that, not anymore,” Vera says. She is _furious_ with Joan. With this game of cat and mouse that they’ve been playing. With herself. With her foolish heart that always seems to want what it can’t have.

 

It’s then that the Joan can see things clearly for the first time in months. In this moment, she is the mad scientist; she has been arrogantly sure of herself, and blinded by her pride in her creation for so long that she hadn’t realized that what she had created in Vera was a monster. Joan had believed herself impervious to destruction, yet she had meticulously moulded Vera into a creature fully and independently capable of destroying her.

 

Vera sees it too. She sees the way that Joan’s shoulders slump, the way that her pupils dilate and the way that her nostrils flare; she’s struck a nerve inside this impervious woman. She’s found something, deep within Joan’s well-hidden self, that Joan is terrified of and it only makes Vera want to get closer to the older woman.

 

“Do you love me?” she dares to ask. She stops crying. She nearly stops breathing.

 

Joan nearly stops breathing as well.

 

Joan’s lips part, but no sound comes out of them. She rubs them together and her ivory skin becomes even paler. Her father’s haunting words rattle around her in her mind. Joan is not capable of love. Joan is not worthy of love. Joan does not know _how_ to love. Joan does not _deserve_ love.

 

_Emotions lead to mistake. Love is the burden of fools Joan, do not forget that._

 

Vera takes a step forward. “Do you? You could have stopped me today but you didn’t. You could have _easily_ stopped me, so that leads me to believe that you wanted me like that. But then you pushed me away, and I deserve to know why!” Vera reaches a hand out to grasp Joan’s wrist; Joan does not stop her nor does she make any move to return the affectionate gesture and Vera lets out an exasperated sob. “I...I care about you Joan and I deserve to know if you care about me too.”

 

Joan remains still. Her full lips twitch but it’s so subtle that Vera is sure that only she could have picked up on the slight movement.

 

She rolls her eyes at Joan’s predictable silence. “I fucking hate it when you do this. When you go all silent and refuse to tell me what you’re feeling,” she hisses. “Fine, you want to be like this? Fine. I’ll do the talking then.”

 

Vera walks over to Joan’s freezer and roughly pulls out the bottle of vodka and two chilled shot glasses. She fills them both to the brim and finishes them both, one after the other, then fills them again.

 

“By all means, please, help yourself,” Joan drawls.

 

The look Vera gives her is pure acid. She maintains her eye contact as she lifts the third shot to her lips. “This one is for you, if you want it,” she says as she points to the second glass which had been refilled.

 

“I’m quite alright,” Joan says tensely. She is unnerved by her Deputy’s aggression. She needs to regain control of this situation, and quickly.

 

Vera places both hands on the countertop and bows her head momentarily before straightening her back and looking Joan dead in the eyes once more. “We are more than just colleagues, unless of course it is within your practice to regularly fuck the people that you work with.” Vera regards the twitching in Joan’s jaw with intense satisfaction. “Beyond the obvious fact that we have shared a physically intimate relationship, however one sided,” she pauses pointedly, “I believe that we have also shared something more. I believed you when you said that we were a team. That we operated on trust, respect for one another, and a shared morale.”

 

Vera’s hands splay out against the cool marble countertop nervously. “I’m…” she falters, “Joan I am not good at this and I think that you know that. But my point is, I know that you and I have forged something deep together. And I know that it is terrifying. Christ, _I’m_ terrified!” Vera pauses and her eyes soften considerably. “But I also know that I’m not willing to let that fear get the best of me.”

 

Vera takes a deep breath and walks back around the kitchen island to stand in front of Joan. “I have the courage to face it, to let you in. Do you?” she asks. Her hands come up to cup either side of Joan’s handsome face and her thumb works in gentle circles along her jaw.

 

Joan’s lips form a thin line and her hands are cold as they grasp Vera’s, pulling them forcefully off of her face. “Remember who you are talking to,” she hisses. In a swift, single motion, Joan turns Vera around and bends her over the countertop. Vera’s hands hastily reach out to steady herself against the smooth surface; they knock over the full vodka shot in the process. The fine liquid and shattered glass make a mess of the immaculate surface.

 

“You think that you can control me?” Joan growls. She is livid, and Vera can feel the anger radiating from her impressive form.

 

Joan’s hips pin the squirming woman down. “Wrong! I am in control, I am _always_ in control. You think that your clever little tongue can undo me? You were a momentary distraction Vera, nothing more.” Joan reaches around to yank open Vera’s trousers with one hand while the other tugs them and a pair of black bikini briefs down her pert ass.

 

“J-Joan, stop,” Vera whimpers. She can feel Joan’s hot, glorious hips pressing against her exposed skin and she shudders as she recalls how divine it had been to kneel between them. Joan’s teeth sink into her cotton-clad shoulder and it sends an immediate jolt of pleasure down to her moistening lower lips and hardening clit. “Oh god, fuck me,” she whimpers. Her face is hot with conflicting embarrassment and desire.

 

“You can’t even make up your mind, can you?” Joan hisses. She forces her Deputy’s legs apart roughly and slides her long fingers on either side of her hard, wet clit. “You’re positively dripping. You can hardly control yourself, isn’t that right Vera?”

 

Vera whimpers. Her hips grind against Joan’s fingers and her hands clench. Joan is right; she’s so wet, so very, very wet. She’s been wet since she walked through the door of Joan’s house tonight.

 

“You’re mine. Say it,” Joan urges. She plays with her Deputy’s swollen lower lips for an indulgent moment before dragging four fingers down to Vera’s entrance and plunging inside of the trembling woman roughly. She curls her fingers and puts her whole body behind her thrusting, causing Vera’s boney hips to slam against the edge of the counter.

 

“I’m yours,” Vera cries out. It’s so good. So fucking good. Joan’s fingers are rougher, sloppier than they’ve ever been; they stretch her delightfully wider than they’ve ever dared to before and Vera is on fire.

 

Joan pants against Vera’s ear. “This is what you need. For me to take control of you. To tell you what to do, for me to make you _feel_. You want to be loved, you want to believe yourself in love with me, but you delude yourself Vera. What you really need is for me to own you from the inside out, and we both know it.”

 

“P-please, Joan,” Vera sobs as she leans her face down flat. Joan’s words pierce her heart but can’t help the desire she feels, she can’t help arching her back and pressing her cunt into the wide, unforgiving heel of Joan’s palm. She can’t help the moans that fall from her lips as Joan’s thick fingers fuck her into a delirious state. She wants Joan. She _loves_ Joan. And she knows that neither one of those things are healthy, but in this moment, she can hardly bring herself to care.

 

“I am not your lover Vera, I am your Governor. Say it,” she snarls.

 

“Go-governor,” Vera gasps. Her head is spinning, her trembling legs are slick with sweat and her own juices. “Governor!” she shouts as she begins to feel dizzy from the maelstrom of sensations, both exquisite and agonizing, that are running rampant along her every nerve ending.

 

“Come for me now,” Joan grunts. At Vera’s answering whimper, Joan continues, “I don’t have all night Vera. Come. _Now_.”

 

“Joan please, _please_ ,” Vera sobs. She’s so close, so fucking close but it’s not enough. She needs more, she needs to wrap her arms and legs around Joan, she needs to nuzzle that perfect, delicious spot behind Joan’s ear, she needs Joan’s shampoo drifting into her nostrils as she buries her face in Joan’s hair. She needs full breasts, straining against the confines of her bra, pressed up against her. She needs to feel the soft sturdiness of Joan’s shoulders under her fingertips. She needs Joan’s lips against her neck.

 

Enraged at her Deputy’s insubordination, she pulls her fingers from her cunt and shoves Vera’s perfect ass away from her. “You just can’t follow instructions, can you Vera?”

 

Vera’s tear streaked face swims into view as Vera turns around and reaches for Joan’s sticky fingers. She attempts to shove them back into her cunt but Joan swats them away easily and shoves Vera backwards and away from her. “Do. Not. Touch. Me,” Joan says, spitting each word out firmly. She’s regained the upper hand, but a part of her just she knows that she risks losing it all if Vera puts her hands on her again.

 

“What the fuck Joan?!” Vera shouts. She is flushed with humiliation and unsated desire; her trembling hands reach for her trousers and panties and roughly pull them back up her shaking legs. “What the fuck was that for?”

 

Joan reaches her hand out to wipe Vera’s abundant juices on the sleeve of Vera’s shirt. “As I said Vera, you were a distraction. Fleeting. Temporary. Had I realized that you would take this all so personally, I would have never allowed it to occur. It’s disappointing really, I had such high hopes for us, for our partnership. We were a team Vera, a good one.” Joan cannot help the feeling of triumph as she assesses how each of her words cuts, deep, into her Deputy’s fragile heart. She feels her control over this woman and the...sensations that she’s inspired in her fluttering just beneath her fingertips again.

 

Vera was incredulous. “ _Team?_ Is that all we were?”

 

Joan arches an eyebrow at her Deputy’s persistence. “You are far too emotional for your own good Vera. You have horrendously mistaken our arrangement for one of your schoolgirl fantasies. I am not here to woo you Vera, I am here to mentor you, to instruct you, but clearly you are incapable of following such _simple_ orders.”

 

“I don’t believe you. You’re being cruel, why? Why do you feel the need to cut people off Joan?” Vera insists. “What are you afraid of? Why won’t you let me in?”

 

A muscle in Joan’s jaw twitches. It’s subtle, but Vera sees it nonetheless.

 

“I suggest that you take your leave now Vera, before you embarrass yourself further.” Joan’s tone makes it explicitly clear that should Vera choose to engage her in any further argument, that it would be to her detriment.

 

Vera shakes her head and lets out a humourless laugh. “God Joan, you really are heartless, aren’t you?” She blinks furiously and pushes past Joan’s towering frame. “Stay away from me,” she hisses.

  
Vera is noisy as she leaves. The normally docile woman is sure to drag her heels across Joan’s floor and yank - then slam - her door with as much force as she can. The sound of her departure rings out all around Joan’s house, bouncing off of the sterile fixtures and furnishings to slice through Joan’s once-impenetrable shield.

 


	9. Exposure

 

The game is irrevocably changed now. 

 

Vera’s reports are on Joan’s desk every Friday evening before the end of her shift. They are detailed and immaculately organized, but they lack the accompanying whiff of Vera’s sweet perfume that always lingered in Joan’s office or home after her Deputy handed it over to her. They lack the accompanying, shining blue eyes that always used to look up to Joan, full to bursting with hope and nervous pride. They lack the fervent nod of Vera’s pretty head and her saccharine,  _ Yes Governor! _ , in response to Joan’s expression of gratitude for their delivery. 

 

A great, many things are lacking. 

 

Joan takes them home with her, and invites them to join her in the sanctuary of her bedroom. Sitting up with perfect posture in bed, Joan reads page after page of Vera’s handwritten (to minimize the chance of any staff discovering them, oh, how her little mouse had learned so quickly!) notes. Her fingertips trace the loopy, large letters across the page and she imagines her Deputy’s voice enunciating each word as her mind processes them. 

 

Her mind always betrays her at some point in the evening. One moment she is reading through the detailed weekly coming and goings of her staff and the next Joan is contemplating about how the curves of Vera’s vowels remind Joan so vividly of the curve of her perfectly proportionate breasts, her firm rear, and the shape of her eyes. It is at this point that Joan slams the report shut and places it on her nightstand before turning her light off and rolling over in bed. 

 

“You let her in Joan.” 

 

Joan closes her eyes and draws her covers up over her head. She grits her teeth and tenses her whole body. She had barely gotten past the first page of Vera’s report tonight when she’d suddenly found herself flushed and overwhelmed by the memory of what it felt like to have Vera under her, her muscular legs wrapped around her, her lips and tongue latching on to Joan’s shoulder. 

 

“Do not hide from me child, I can see you.” Her father’s menacing words are spoken so near to her that she could swear she feels the heat radiating from his body. 

 

“I am in control,” Joan mumbles through a clenched jaw. “I am in control. I am in control.” 

 

“You are distracted,” he hisses. 

 

Joan flings the luxurious duvet off of her and she sits up in bed, shaking with rage and fear. 

 

“I am in control!” she yells. Her father is sitting in the armchair by her small bookshelf and regarding his only child with utter contempt. “I  _ am  _ in control,” she repeats. 

 

Her father snarls at her. “You gave up your control the moment that you spread your legs for that woman. You are such a disappointment Joan.” 

 

Joan feels heat rising in her cheeks as her mind cruelly recalls the very event that her father is speaking of with such disgust. 

 

“It was a momentary distraction. It will not happen again - I have seen to that. I had anticipated that doing so would further ingratiate myself with Deputy Bennett. I miscalculated but no matter, it is resolved, ” she defends. 

 

“You have seen to that by destroying the very alliance that you needed!” he shouts. “What do you have now Joan? A valuable asset? Wrong! You have a scorned former lover who is so riddled with emotion - emotion that  _ you _ inspired - that she holds the power to destroy you. Emotion is a weakness yes, but it is volatile! Unpredictable! It is dangerous Joan and you have let yourself become weak. You have exposed yourself.” 

 

“I have not,” Joan insists. She does not want to think about all the ways that Vera could destroy her. She especially does not want to think about Vera within the context of a lover...her lover. Her  _ former  _ lover. 

 

Joan kicks the duvet off of her lower body and begins to pace in tight circles around her immaculate bedroom. “I have dismissed Deputy Bennett, as she has served her purpose. I did not require anything further from her therefore I ended our...alliance,” Joan mutters. Her fingers claw through thick silver-streaked hair and she continues, “Whatever performance I put on was just that, sacrifices had to be made for the greater good. I have had to make difficult decisions father, but I have never wavered! I never lost sight of what the greater good was asking of me!” 

 

“Then prove it Joan.” Her father is next to her now, his cold, rough hand is unforgiving in its grip on her shoulder. It stills her pacing effectively. She can smell the faintest trace of tobacco on his breath. “Prove to me that you are in control Joan.” 

 

In spite of her conflicted hatred for this man, Joan leans into his touch. Her forehead connects with his shoulder and she looks up into his piercing eyes. “How?” she asks. His hand loosens its grip on her shoulder and begins to gently stroke her hair the way that he used to when she was a child. “How?” she asks again, this time with urgency. How does she earn the love and pride of a man who claims to have neither? How does she undo years of repeated disappointment? 

 

“Soon  Joan,” he soothes. “Soon, you will understand how.”

 


	10. Riot

 

Joan marches down the corridor with her radio firmly in hand. She can feel heat rising in her face and neck as she eyes the disarray of her prison and the results of the disobedience of her prisoners. Behind her, she can hear Vera’s quick steps, struggling to keep up with her own wide, fast strides. 

 

“Governor, H Block is empty,” she says as she comes up beside Joan. 

 

Joan does not make eye contact with her Deputy. She hasn’t allowed herself that indulgence since Vera invaded her home with a tirade of angry demands and messy emotions. Their interactions in recent weeks have been limited. Brief. Abrupt. Their laughable height difference has made it easy for Joan to simply bark instructions at her Deputy while looking at the top of her hair; hair which is so pulled so painfully tight that the wild curls that Joan is so fond of have disappeared completely. Joan misses them. 

 

Joan misses Vera’s eyes even more. She misses the gorgeous display of submission that once shone from their ocean-blue depths. She misses the way that they used to widen in soft wonder anytime Joan praised her. She misses the way that they used to darken as Joan drove her to the heights of pleasure again and again. She misses them a great deal. 

 

Joan bites the inside of her cheek. Her sharp teeth sink into the vulnerable flesh and the pain slices through her. It feels almost good. It serves as a reminder; Vera had served her purpose. Her time with her Deputy had been useful but that time had come to completion. She had assured her father that she was in control, and she intended to make good on that promise.There was no point in dwelling on...on Vera’s wasted potential. On their broken partnership. On Vera’s inability to grow. On her reliance on emotion and  _ trust _ and other equally fickle, unnecessary things; none of this was useful to Joan. None of this would further the greater good. None of this would put an end to Bea Smith’s pathetic attempt at a riot and show of power. 

 

“We need to shut this down,  _ now, _ ” Joan hisses, her displeasure is evident. From her peripheral vision she can see Vera’s jaw tighten. She notes that her normally glowing skin seems sunken and pale - how long had it been that way? Was she just noticing it now? 

 

_ Control! _ Joan reminds herself. 

 

“We need to get to a secure location so that we can get eyes on everything that is happening,” Vera replies. “We have no idea how big this is, though I suspect that Smith is orchestrating it due to recent tension between the two of you,” she says and she looks pointedly at her Governor. 

 

Joan merely nods her head curtly and bites her lip. There is no denying that Vera is correct about who is behind this disarray, and the reason for it. She hates that Vera is so perceptive. 

 

Vera spots something out of the corner of her eye and she turns a corridor, announcing that she’s going to investigate. 

 

Joan is two strides ahead when she hears the sickening sound of a lithe body being smashed up against a glass window. 

 

“Aaah-Assistance! Help! HEEELP! JOOOOAN!” 

 

Joan’s blood runs cold. She spins on her heel and runs down the corridor, hangs a sharp left and feels her heart stop. Four masked prisoners have their filthy, degenerate paws all over her Deputy and are pushing her up against the glass of the door; her perfect cheekbones are red and wet, pressed up against the glass, as she sobs for her Governor. 

 

For  _ Joan.  _

 

One prisoner spots Joan and plunges their hand into their pocket to retrieve a rusty knife.

 

“Back off Ferguson or Vinegar Tits gets it,” she wheezes. 

 

Vera stops screaming and cranes her neck to look at Joan with wide, frightened eyes. Her hair has come loose from the rough way that the prisoners have thrown her around and Joan feels a flutter deep within her gut as she notices the way that it begins to curl as Vera’s body breaks out in a nervous sweat. 

 

“Unhand my Deputy,” Joan growls. She reaches into the cuff of her shirt and draws out her beloved black leather gloves and pulls them on slowly. Her muscles tense in anticipation and her jaw tightens. 

 

The knife-wielding prisoner grabs Vera from the grasp of her associate and spins her around so that Vera is facing Joan. The blade is pressed deep into the skin of Vera’s neck and dragged down a few centimeters; a thin trickle of blood begins to make its way down her throat. Her soft, delicious throat that Joan knows to both feel and taste divine. 

 

“Fuck off Ferguson,” the prisoner laughs, “Vinegar Tits and I are going to go for a ride and you’re not invited.” She lifts the bottom of her mask and trails a fat, greasy tongue up Vera’s neck, parallel to the warm blood marking her sinewy flesh. 

 

Vera goes limp in her captor’s arms and her face drains of all colour. Her eyes become dark and wide with impending doom. 

 

Joan feels the rage inside of her chest reach a boiling point and spill over, igniting every limb. She moves swiftly, hand outstretched, as she clutches Vera’s captor by the throat and pins her to the wall. She drags the prisoner’s body up, delighting in the way that the miscreant’s feet dangle helplessly. The prisoner’s hand goes slack and the blade falls to the ground. 

 

“J-Joan, please, let her go!” She hears Vera’s pleas, but they’re far away, like gentle waves caressing the hot sand on a beach. 

 

She feels tiny, firm fists against her back and registers a faint commotion all around her. 

 

“ _ Please,”  _ Vera is sobbing, “Please let go Joan!” 

 

Further commotion breaks out and Joan suddenly feels her legs give out. The prisoner in her grasp is yanked away from her by someone who is shouting at them both. She hears Vera shrieking. She hears the voices of her officers fill the corridor. She sees black trouser-clad legs around her, sees flailing teal-clad legs being dragged and pinned to the floor. She tries to turn around but she can’t. 

 

Cold sweat breaks out across her face and her hands begin to tremble. Her forehead leans against the wall and she is breathing heavily, trying to steady herself; she blinks several times to try and clear her vision but everything around her only blurs further. She feels soft, strong hands on either side of her face, gently pulling her away from the wall and guiding her head and upper body to lean against a soft, sweaty neck. 

 

“N-no, it’s filthy there, come, rest your weight on me,” Vera cries. Her hands smooth the wiry hairs around her ears and her lips connect with her temple. “It’s okay, it’s okay - the ambulance is on its way.” 

 

Joan closes her eyes against the wave of nausea that was suddenly rising. Her arms feel heavy and her chest suddenly feels tight. “Am-ambulance?” she grumbles. 

 

Vera nods her head fervently. “They’re on their way, yes. Don’t worry, I’ll stay with you.” 

 

“Wi...with me,” Joan repeats. Her words are slurred and her head feels heavy. 

 

Vera’s grip intensifies as she feels Joan go completely slack in her arms. “J-joan?” she cries. “Joan...Governor Ferguson!” She shakes Joan, hard, but Joan remains unresponsive. Gently, she cups one side of Joan’s head with one hand while the other reaches out to check Joan’s pulse; it’s weak, frighteningly weak. 

  
She looks down, horrified, at the knife sticking out of her Governor’s long back, and the oozing crimson staining her immaculate uniform. 

 


	11. Failure

 

The first thing that Joan registers is the unmistakably bright light piercing through her tired, sore eyes. The next is the smell of rubbing alcohol and newly laundered linens. Her fingers twitch and she discerns that they are laying atop an uncomfortably firm mattress and heavily starched sheets. She attempts to lift her hand, but it only makes it a quarter of an inch off of the bed before a soft, firm weight consumes it and gently guides it back down onto the subpar sheets.

 

“You’re fine, I’m here.” The sweet, familiar voice of her Deputy slices through the haze and Joan blinks heavily, looking up and into watering blue eyes. They’re bloodshot and accentuated by the dark circles under them, but they seem to calm and soften the moment that Joan finds them.

 

Vera’s hand strokes along the blue veins in the back of Joan’s hand. Her thumb pauses to gently circle the faint smattering of birthmarks along the skin of her Governor.

 

Joan’s tongue feels thick and heavy. “The riot,” she slurs, “Smith...responsible...are you hurt?”

 

“I’m fine. Smith’s crew has been slotted. The mess is being cleaned up as we speak. Mr. Jackson is overseeing everything,” Vera responds patiently.

 

Vera looks down at the formidable woman, clad now in a hospital gown that is comically too small for her, and can’t help but feel a surge of affection towards her.

 

“Joan, do you remember what happened yesterday?”

 

Joan’s ears prickle. “Yesterday?” she repeats. She frowns at her Deputy.

 

Vera licks her lips and looks down guiltily; Joan’s actions had rendered her incapacitated for nearly an entire day, the longest day of Vera’s life.

 

A lock of hair falls from behind her ear and covers her face, it’s then that Joan notices that Vera is wearing civilian clothing. She blinks hard as she tries to make sense of how much time has passed since she last saw her Deputy.

 

“During the riot, a handful of prisoners attempted to…” Vera pauses, frowns, then continues, “You um, you saved my life but got harmed in the process. You lost a great deal of blood so you were brought to the hospital to have the wound looked after and to have a blood transfusion. You’ve been resting for the last twenty hours and you will be able to return to work in about two weeks.” Her last words come out rushed and nervous; she knows that Joan won’t take kindly to being ordered away from work for so long.  

 

The events of the riot come crashing into Joan’s mind: images of Vera’s lithe body being overpowered by someone other than herself, the sound of Vera crying out for her, the feel of the prisoner’s fat neck in her grip, the smell of Vera’s sweat and blood in the air. Joan sits up abruptly and hisses and curses at the sharp, accompanying pain that slices through her.

 

“Take it easy,” Vera cautions. She helps Joan lean back against the multiple pillows behind her. “That’s it,” she encourages as Joan eases her weight onto her back.

 

From this angle, Joan can see the exposed skin of Vera’s neck above the collar of her casual shirt. She can see the fresh bandage overtop the golden skin and well-defined sinew and her hand suddenly itches to feel the sturdy muscles encased in their delicate, soft outer layer. An uncoordinated, heavily medicated hand reaches out and clumsily jabs Vera’s collarbone.

 

“Who did this?” Joan asks as she wills her clumsy fingers to be gentle in the exploration of the skin around the bandage. She regrets that she hadn’t unmasked the vile creature who had harmed Vera before they were dragged away from her.

 

Vera’s breath catches. “It’s not important,” she tries, but Joan’s fingers are persistent.

 

“Vera,” she growls, “who did this to you?” The particular memory of the prisoner trailing her fat, unwelcome tongue along her Deputy’s neck leaves an unpleasant taste in her mouth.

 

Vera gently removes Joan’s fingers from her neck and places them back down onto the mattress. She takes a shuddering breath before addressing the woman in front of her. “Joan, please don’t touch me like you care about me when you made it very clear that you don’t. It’s confusing, and I’m too tired to deal with it,” she says. Vera is noticeably exhausted but there is a persistent edge to her tone that makes Joan’s ears prickle.

 

It’s a test. Vera isn’t afraid to admit it to herself. She isn’t afraid to lower herself to this, to pulling at the strings of her Governor’s carefully guarded heart. Not after the events of the last twenty hours. Not after she watched the rusty knife plunge into a back that she knows to be strong and powerful. Not after she felt Joan collapse in her arms.

 

Not after she rode in the ambulance, covered in Joan’s blood while paramedics frantically tried to find her pulse. Vera needs to know _why_ . Why had Joan allowed herself to become a target, why had and Joan risked everything for her, why had Joan inserted herself so completely into Vera’s heart, despite the cruelty with which she had shown her. Vera needs to know _why,_ and Joan had the audacity to nearly die on her without ever giving her the answers that she so desperately needs.

 

Vera watches the conflicting emotions swirling through Joan’s cool brown eyes. She watches as the brilliant mind behind them puts one and one together and comes up with a pair. She then watches anger and frustration cloud them in reaction to Vera’s clever little plan.

 

“Don’t Vera,” Joan sneers. She can feel the bite of her little mouse’s teeth and she pulls her hand away from Vera’s grasp. She resents Vera’s continued quest to force her to take part in the turbulent emotions that run Vera’s life, that control her.

 

Joan will _not_ be controlled by emotion.

 

“Don’t pretend that you didn’t risk your life to save mine, Joan,” Vera warns. She leans in, well into Joan’s personal space and whispers in her ear, “You can try and deny it all you want. You can tell yourself that it never happened. But you have a scar in your back that says differently. And it’s not going anywhere, anytime soon. And...well, neither am I,” she says awkwardly, softening her tone considerably. Joan looks back at her, alarmed and as vulnerable as Vera has ever seen her and it causes guilt to wash over her. A distinct flush paints her high cheekbones. “Christ, Joan, I’m sorry I didn’t mean...you...you nearly died Joan,” she finishes, her voice wavering. “You nearly _died_ ,” she repeats.

 

The scent of Vera’s perfume makes Joan’s mouth water. It’s been weeks since she’s been this close to her Deputy. Her lips are inches from Joan’s ear and her warm breath is on her cheek; Joan is suddenly overcome with the desire to wrap her arms around Vera and pull her down on top of her. To give in to the intense and unfulfilled desire to know what her Deputy’s lips feel like against her own.

 

Joan bites down on the inside of her cheek in response to the turbulent, rising emotions that she feels bubbling just below her surface. _Control,_ she sees the word in her mind, just barely out of her reach. Her body is merely coping with the physical stress of being attacked. Of nearly dying.This desire is merely a manifestation of her shock, a physiological byproduct of the blood loss and trauma, this isn’t...well, whatever else it _could_ be.

 

A gentle hand rests overtop Joan’s forehead and Joan can see a responding crinkle form in Vera’s own forehead. “You’re warm,” she says gently, “the nurse said that might happen once you woke up.”

 

Joan is overwhelmed with the urge to rip Vera’s hand off of her. To reach up and press it harder against the skin. To reach for her other hand and place it both everywhere and nowhere specific on her at once. She does neither, instead, she finds herself leaning into her Deputy’s touch, exhaling as Vera’s palm flattens out against the skin.

 

Out of the corner of her eye, Joan can see her father looming in the doorway to her room. His shoulders are squared, his eyes are cold, and the tightness in his jaw gives away his deep and continued disappointment.

 

 _Prove to me that you’re still in control Joan._ His prior words echo in her mind and a white-hot panic rises in her chest, flaring out to scorch her limbs. _Control,_ the word disappears from her mind and she begins to feel herself falling. She isn’t in control. _This_ was his test, and she’s failed it. She is a disappointment. Worthless. Pointless. _Nothing._ Her chest feels tight and her fingers tingle, she feels sweat begin to break out across her brow, under Vera’s delicate hand.

 

Vera watches Joan concernedly. Her dark, mysterious eyes are wide and terrified and her lower lip begins to tremble, she looks as though the weight of the past twenty hours has just caught up with her and is crushing her broad shoulders. Vera curses inwardly; she was wrong to push Joan, she was wrong to take advantage of her momentary vulnerability.

 

“Joan, it’s okay,” Vera says gently. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to push you when you’re only just starting to recover. You’ve only just woken up, I just...that was selfish of me,” she says, panicked. She wraps muscled, golden arms around Joan and gently guides Joan’s head to rest against her shoulder. Her heart flutters when Joan does not fight the action, but rather, gives in and allows Vera to stroke her thick hair.

 

Joan vaguely recalls Vera doing this earlier but being unable to truly appreciate the softness of her Deputy’s hair and skin, the warmth of that perfect nook between neck and shoulder.

 

“I thought that you weren’t going to wake up,” she whispers and Joan can hear the fear in her voice. “I’m here, okay? I’m sorry for leaving. I’m sorry for disappointing you. I’m just sorry. I’m with you. Always.” Vera’s lips meet the top of Joan’s head and thick, hot tears fall from her eyes to wet Joan’s hair. Gentle kisses are placed against Joan’s furrowed brow and Vera repeats, “I’m with you, I’m always with you, always.”

 

The last time such promises were passed between them, Vera had been in Joan’s arms, sobbing over the death of her mother; the death that she had orchestrated. Joan had bitten the words into Vera’s taut neck, whispered them over and over as her fingers worked Vera to the edge then pushed her over. She had felt them in the space between them as Vera fell asleep in her arms that night. They had echoed in her mind as she succumbed to sleep herself that night, wrapped up and around one another.

  
The irony of these promises being passed between them again, and their reversed roles, is not lost on Joan.

 


	12. Predicament

 

“That’s is Joan, just put your weight on me.” 

 

Joan grinds her teeth stubbornly at her Deputy’s subtle commands. She attempts to lean back on her own, in defiance of Vera’s instruction and without Vera’s surprising strength guiding her, and falls promptly against the sturdy headboard of her luxuriously sized bed. She feels the air rush out of her lungs and a sharp pain slice up and down her back. Her eyes water and her jaw tightens even further, but she refuses to vocalize her pain. 

 

_ It’s just pain Joan.  _

 

Her father’s belt had stung and sliced the tender skin of her back regularly as a child as punishment for her failings. Decades later, she still sometimes felt the old scars prickle and itch like they did when they were fresh. Today, she feels the pain of a new scar having been added to her collection. 

 

_ Giving a voice to it means that you are succumbing to it. Do not give in!  _

 

Joan breathes heavily through flared nostrils and wills the pain to subside. 

 

_ It’s just pain. It’s just pain. It’s just pain.  _

 

“Oh Joan, I can take your weight, trust me,” she gently chides. 

 

Trust. _ Trust.  _ Joan does not trust. Joan does not want to trust. Joan especially does not want to trust Vera; she had walked far too close to that edge once before and is now forced to carry a marker of that failure on her for the rest of her days. 

 

“I’m fine,” Joan snaps. She smacks Vera’s hands away, which are trying to arrange the blankets around Joan’s legs. “You’ve driven me here, you may leave now, I have no further need of your assistance.” 

 

Vera places both hands on her slight hips and lets out an exhausted, exasperated sigh. “Joan Ferguson, of all the bloody people that I have had to look after while ill, you are positively the worst. You heard the doctor, you are to be confined to your bed for the next week, your wound is still fresh enough that any excessive activities could rip it open. Do you really want that?” She glares down at the infuriating woman before her. 

 

The last few days at the hospital had been a nightmare. Joan’s vile temper and refusal to accept help from, well, anyone, had caused a nurse to quit her job on the spot, and had made another two burst into tears. The doctor treating Joan had been all too happy to get her out of his care, and had been able to release her on the strict conditions that she have someone monitor her recovery while at home. Vera had been a familiar face around the hospital and with the nurses who had also treated her mother, as well as the only person who had visited Joan during her stay. The staff had all but forced Joan to go home, insisting that she would recover as a better rate surrounded by her own creature comforts, and that Vera would surely look after her just as well as she had looked after her own mother.

 

Their assumptions about Vera’s benevolence in her care for her mother secretly repulsed Vera, but she knew better than to confess to the truth. 

 

She continues to berate Joan. “Do you really want to deal with the possibility of agitating an open wound, rendering you incredibly vulnerable to infection? An open wound, which by the way, you can hardly reach? Well?” Vera asks pointedly. 

 

Joan’s brow furrows and she crosses her long, elegant arms over one another. “I assure you that I am more than capable of looking after my...predicament on my own,” she hisses. 

 

“Really?” Vera asks. She stands a little taller in front of Joan. “Well then, try and reach the bandage. Go on!” She knows how risky it is to issue Joan a dare. The events of the last hazy, chaotic two days, of being forced to see Joan in an entirely different light, and live to tell the tale, have Vera feeling damn near invincible and far more daring than she has ever felt in her forty-two years on this earth. 

 

Joan’s lip twitches. She knows that to follow through with her Deputy’s dare would be an act of submission on her part, and she will absolutely not capitulate to Vera. At the same time, she knows that by not proving Vera wrong, she inadvertently proves Vera  _ right _ , and she can hardly stand that either. 

 

Vera can see the muscle of Joan’s jaw twitching irritably.  _ Looks like I’ve struck a nerve!  _ She thinks as she sits down on the edge of Joan’s bed. 

 

“Joan,” she tries again, patiently this time, “a lot has happened between us. There is a rather large elephant in the room and I know that it was wrong of me to try and force you into that conversation at the hospital. We don’t have to talk about anything. We don’t have to talk at all. Just, please let me take care of you. Please? It is the least that I can do given recent events.” 

 

Joan regards Vera carefully. Very carefully. Her mind’s wheels turn over and over, through the haze of the physical pain and grogginess from the medication that she’d been forced to take, she concedes that she is unable to detect an ulterior motive in her Deputy’s tone. Still, she is reluctant to accept Vera back into the sanctuary of her home, even more still to accept Vera’s offered assistance. 

 

“I do not require assistance,” Joan repeats, succeeding in keeping most of the agitation out of her tone. Though at Vera’s challenging look, Joan goes in for the kill. “Really Vera, you must get out of the habit of caring for recently hospitalized women who do not want you around.” 

 

The blow lands squarely in Vera’s heart. Joan can see her muscular shoulders sag as each perfectly enunciated word is spoken. She sees something dark and dangerous in Vera’s eyes and suddenly feels the strangest sensation fluttering in her own belly. 

 

“That’s low Joan, even for you,” Vera whispers. “Though since you have brought it up, perhaps I should also remind you that I am  _ more _ than capable of taking care of stubborn, ungrateful people,” she issues as a warning. 

 

“Is that so?” Joan asks. She cannot help but feel a thrill ripple through her exhausted body at the bite in her Deputy’s tone. It’s exhilarating and Joan finds herself reminiscing over what had drawn her to completely to this seemingly docile woman in the first place. 

 

Vera’s full, delicious lips form a thin line as she reaches for one of the many bottles lined up on Joan’s nightable. Extracting one pale green pill, she shoves it, along with a glass of cool water into Joan’s hand. “Swallow,” she orders, “I’ll go downstairs and make you some food. Your next medication will require you to take it with food.” 

  
Joan surprises the pair of them by complying with her Deputy’s orders. 

 


	13. Nest

 

Vera can feel Joan’s dark brown eyes following her every move as she walks carefully back into the bedroom and rests a tray holding her dinner atop the dresser. 

 

There was a time when Vera used to wish for the time spent outside of work would move faster just so that she could be in Joan’s presence again and be the object of the Governor’s intense, unnerving stare. There was a time when, in the moments leading up to her climaxes, here, in this big, lonely bed of Joan’s, that Vera would wish for time to slow down so that milliseconds felt like hours; for she knew that the moment her pleasure subsided, the warm, solid body above her would roll over and disappear, leaving Vera to dress and leave before her tears began. Before the crushing loneliness gripped her heart and made her pace in anxious, tight circles around the bedroom; this she did in her own room, around her own, albeit much smaller, lonely bed. 

 

_ I was a fool,  _ Vera reminds herself,  _ A lovestruck, hopeless fool.  _

 

Vera smooths out the blankets on Joan’s lap now, and blocks out any lewd thoughts about the solid, thick muscle beneath her hands as she settles the tray overtop them. She is here to return the favour; Joan had saved her life, and Vera is merely ensuring that Joan has a speedy recovery. It’s the least that she can do, right? 

 

“I’ve made it fresh,” Vera informs Joan as she gestures to the stew. She knows that anything other than a meal prepared with her own preferred ingredients will not do for Joan. 

 

_ Correction, I am a fool,  _ Vera scolds herself. She can’t deny it. Her fluttering heart still expands nervously anytime that she is in Joan’s presence; a presence, which, Vera craves with an indescribable hunger. 

 

Joan arches a finely sculpted brow and regards the meal before her with little enthusiasm. 

 

Vera rolls her eyes at both Joan’s predictable response and the wave of indulgent affection that she feels building within her at said response. “I used the vegetables and broth from your kitchen. If you tell me where you purchased everything from, I’ll even replenish your stock.” 

 

Joan relaxes a little and reaches for the spoon on the tray. She takes a tentative sip and feels an explosion of rich flavours on her tongue. “This is acceptable,” she says haughtily.  

 

Vera allows a half-smile to grace her lips as she sits down on the edge of Joan’s bed. There is something strangely intimate about watching this woman eat, about watching her go through the motions of such a basic survival instinct. It reminds Vera that for all her imperviousness, her strength, her wickedly higher intelligence, that Joan Ferguson is still human. 

 

She places her spoon down and regards Vera critically. Her Deputy’s eyes are surrounded by darkening skin, proof that she had either not been sleeping or eating well, or both. Vera’s markers of physical weakness are disturbing; she’s taught Vera better than this, than allowing others to perceive such physical vulnerabilities. 

 

“Would you...like some?” Joan asks awkwardly. She cannot quite bring herself to share a spoon with her Deputy, but should Vera require nourishment as well at this time, well, she would certainly be amenable to allowing Vera to finish the rather delicious stew that she’d made. 

 

“I’m fine, thank you. But you should eat,” Vera advises. She’s surprised at the pleasantries that they’ve managed since Joan’s initial refusal of her assistance; she counts her blessings in silence as she waits for Joan to finish with her meal, then clears the tray and returns with a bag full of bandages, disinfectants, towels, and gloves.

 

“Right, so, I’ll have to change the dressing before I leave you be for the evening,” Vera says. She can feel her ears burning with heat even before Joan’s damned near perfect eyebrow arches at her disbelievingly. “You um, you can just lift your shirt up a bit...it’s low enough that I’ll be able to get to it,” she stammers. 

 

“And if I refuse to comply?” Joan asks. Her heart pounds uncomfortably in her chest; she has never allowed anyone to see her so...exposed. Certainly not a conquest. _ Former  _ conquest, she reminds herself; even during their... _ intimate _ encounters, Joan had always remained mostly clothed. 

 

Vera lets out a dry chuckle. “You have no idea how many times I have heard the women use that line on me over the years,” she says. Her tone softens and she adds, “I meant what I said Joan. I’m here to help, that’s it. I swear.” 

 

Reluctantly, Joan lifts the bottom half of her shirt and tucks it under her bra band. “Well go on then, get this over with,” she huffs. 

 

“Um, yes, right.” Vera clears her throat and climbs into the bed next to Joan; she’s surprised that Joan only required minimal convincing. The action, however, startles the Governor. 

 

“What are you doing?” she asks, mildly panicked.

 

“I need to get close to your back Joan,” Vera calmly reasons as she pulls the black latex gloves on and rolls out a clean towel to arrange her medical supplies on, “it will be more comfortable for you if you just lean forward, that way I don’t have to move you.” 

 

The alabaster of Joan’s high cheekbones redden, her jaw tightens and her lips form a thin line. Vera can feel the tension rolling off of her impressive frame in waves as her glove-clad hands gently removes the bandage and places it on the towel. The skin around the affected area is red and covered in some dried blood, the stitches are fresh but well done, Vera surmises that once they’ve done their job, Joan will be left with a scar measuring approximately three inches long. Guilt, and something slightly sweeter and far more disturbing settles low in Vera’s gut as she contemplates the fact that Joan will forever carry a marker of her decision, and whatever had motivated it, to save Vera. 

 

Vera is exceedingly gentle with her movements, far more so than the nurses had been at the hospital, Joan muses. Whereas they had touched Joan out of a sense of duty, and she had grudgingly permitted it, Vera’s touch is laced with compassion and affection. And, unlike the nosey medical staff at the hospital, if Vera could discern the white, faded scars from her past, she certainly did not comment on them. She hardly knows what to make of the results of this silent comparison. 

 

“All done.” Joan feels Vera’s words tickle the back of her neck a few minutes after she’d climbed into the bed with her. The warm breath of her Deputy sends a responding shiver down her back. 

 

“A-already?” she asks disbelievingly. She’d hardly felt the sting of the disinfectant on her skin, nor the burn of the abrasive tape being pulled off of the bandage. She’d felt nothing but unparalleled tenderness and movements that felt far more like a caress than they should have been. 

 

“Yup,” Vera says brightly. She makes quick work of rolling up the towel, tucking in the soiled bandages and gloves, and sliding off of the bed. She watches Joan untuck her shirt from her bra and a thought occurs to Vera. She clears her throat nervously, “Would you...uh, like some help to become more comfortable?” Her voice is several pitches higher than normal. 

 

“No. That will be quite alright. I am fine.” Joan’s curt response is indication enough for Vera to drop the subject, though part of Vera does find it almost amusing that Joan is willing to suffer sleeping with an underwire bra just to avoid letting Vera help her with such a personal task. 

 

“Doctor’s recommended that you sleep on your side, with a pillow propped up behind your back to prevent you from rolling over in the middle of the night,” she informs Joan. 

 

Joan moves stiffly onto her side and lays down with notable awkwardness as Vera disappears to dispose of the dirty towel and soiled bandages and wash her hands, thoroughly. 

 

“This is ridiculous,” Joan huffs as she wiggles against the mattress to try and find a comfortable position on the bed. She hates her body for betraying her like this. But more than anything, she hates herself and whatever had motivated her to place herself in such a compromising position. 

 

“Here, let me.” Vera is back and unrolling the sleeves of her shirt back down her freshly washed hands and forearms. She places a gentle hand on Joan’s forearm to still her. “Stay still, let me do the work,” she advises. She places one pillow by Joan’s knees, “Lift your leg please?” she asks and she holds her breath as Joan complies for her to slip the pillow between gloriously long legs. “Spoon the pillow,” Vera instructs, knowing full well how absurd she sounds telling the famously fearsome Governor Ferguson to spoon a pillow. 

 

Joan scoffs. “Vera, this is absolutely ridiculous,” she complains. 

 

“Just do it,” Vera says, though not unkindly. There is an amused twinkle in her eyes that lets Joan know that the absurdity of this situation is certainly not lost on her, and that makes her feel slightly less uncomfortable with this whole situation. 

 

Vera can feel Joan’s glare as her Governor lifts an arm up and around the pillow. “Good, now I’m going to place another pillow flush against your back.” 

 

Joan clenches her jaw as Vera works around her, arranging the pillows and blankets until she is secured successfully in a cradle of cushions and sheets that is, surprisingly, quite comfortable and easy on her aching back. 

 

“Better?” Vera crouches down so that she is eye-level with Joan. 

 

Joan feels a lump form in her throat and she tightens her hold on the pillow. “Why are you here Vera?” she snaps. 

 

Vera’s expression turns grim and her eyes flutter. “You need help Joan. I know that you like to think of yourself as above all that, but you’re human. It’s okay to accept help sometimes.” 

 

She doesn’t want to admit to Joan the real reason why she is here. She’s promised to ignore that particular looming issue for now.

 

“Why are  _ you _ here,” Joan repeats, “you could have arranged to have a nurse do all of this.” 

 

Vera laughs, and it is bright and clear and it causes Joan to grip the pillow even harder. “Joan,” she tuts, “any nurse I’d hire, you would eat for breakfast,” she says, hoping that this is enough to change the subject. 

 

Joan’s fingers abruptly reach out to touch Vera’s shoulder. “I didn’t mean for you to get hurt. I...I regret that you were targeted during the riot.” Her hand clumsily pats Vera’s shoulder and she searches Vera’s eyes for confirmation that she is appropriately comforting her. 

 

Vera’s hand rests overtop Joan and her thumb strokes her hand softly. “Look, it’s been an exhausting few days for the both of us. Rest up and I’ll be back in the morning to check in on you, okay? I’ve got your key and I’ll keep it with me to make a copy before coming over, is that alright?” At Joan’s responding nod, Vera smiles. “Okay. I’ve left your phone on the night table. Call me if you need anything.” 

 

Vera feels the inevitable, gravitational pull between them and she gives in slightly to her overwhelming need to be closer to Joan. She leans forward and gently brushes her lips against Joan’s forehead. She feels Joan’s eyelashes flutter against her chin at the movement and she feels her heart swell in response. 

  
_ Maybe I’m not such a fool afterall, _ Vera dares to think. 

 


	14. Routine

 

They settle into a routine that feels surprisingly natural to the pair of them. 

 

Vera comes by Joan’s house every morning, mid-day, and evening. She schedules her shifts around when Joan needs to eat and when Joan needs to be medicated. If her colleagues find it peculiar that her schedule is suddenly so regimented, they certainly don’t bother to question her. 

 

Every night she brings stacks of paperwork containing files, profiles, documents, and forms for Joan’s signature and review with her from the prison to Joan’s house. Vera pulls the chair in Joan’s room up to the edge of the bed, and they continue to work side by side, in comfortable silence, as though they’re working in Joan’s office and not her bedroom. 

 

Each day, Joan becomes more mobile, and by the fourth day, she is able to leave the confines of her bedroom for longer than the necessary trips to her bathroom and shower. Vera returns at the end of the particularly long day to find Joan bent over the kitchen counter slicing up various ingredients for their dinner. 

 

“How did you get down here?” Vera asks concernedly as she loosens her tie and sheds her jacket. 

 

Joan peers up from her work to offer Vera a dry, “I took the stairs, obviously.” 

 

Vera’s eye roll comes at no surprise to Joan. Her mouse has gotten bolder and bolder in the last few days and secretly, Joan has been rather unnerved by it.  

 

“I suppose that pointing out to you that you are not to be out of bed yet will do absolutely no good?” she questions as she rolls her sleeves up and begins to chop the already washed salad to the right of Joan. 

 

“You are correct,” Joan says, and the way that she enunciates the last word causes a shiver to dance up and down Vera’s spine. 

 

From the corner of her eye, Vera sees the seasoned steaks awaiting Joan’s barbecue. “I’ll handle the steaks,” she says and it is not so much an offer as it is a statement. 

 

“I like-”

 

“Cooked rare. I know,” Vera says, then throws Joan a knowing smile. “Though I hardly understand how you can eat it when it’s practically still alive.” 

 

Joan offers her a glare that lets Vera know she’s walking on the edge of acceptable teasing and insubordination. “Do. Not. Overcook. My. Steak,” she issues as a warning, and Vera surmises that no other woman could come across quite as dominating and frightening as Joan Ferguson while wearing a pair of black yoga pants and a black pullover sweater. 

 

Vera isn’t long with Joan’s steak; she makes certain to time exactly one minute and forty seconds for each side of the chunk of meat before expediently removing it from the grill and plating it. She brings Joan’s steak inside and sets it at the table before returning to the grill for her own, which she’s let stay on for considerably longer, much to Joan’s disgust. The two parts of their meal, steak and mixed vegetables, come together at around the same time. Vera returns to the kitchen with her plated steak in hand just as Joan is taking a seat at the table. 

 

Vera notes that Joan’s eyes no longer hold the playful, albeit, defiant, glimmer that they’d had a few minutes ago. There is a tension in her shoulders that Vera doubts very much has anything to do with the chopping that she’s done in preparation for their meal. Joan clears her throat tensley and holds out the bowl of grilled and marinated vegetables. 

 

“It’s zucchini and eggplant, your fav-” Joan’s eyes go wide and she clamps her mouth shut and thrusts the bowl towards Vera more forcefully. 

 

And that’s when it hits Vera. 

 

This is the first meal that they’ve shared together, at this table, since their...well, whatever it was that they’d had, ended. Clearly Joan has noticed. Clearly Joan has  _ more  _ than noticed, and it’s made her so uncomfortable that she can hardly stand to be around Vera. 

 

Vera feels a sinking, sick feeling deep in her gut. The last few days have been the nearest thing to bliss that Vera has ever known; a vast improvement on the tone that coloured their interactions in the days prior to the riot. She should have known that there was no way that such a thing could be maintained. 

 

“T-thank you,” Vera stutters as she takes the offered bowl from Joan’s hands. Joan offers her a stiff nod before she turns her attention to her steak. 

 

Between bites, Vera nods her head appreciatively. “This is delicious Joan, thank you,” she says, hoping that neutral pleasantries will help make this dinner go by faster, or at least, with less awkwardness that they were currently experiencing. 

 

It doesn’t. 

 

Her Governor’s cheeks redden considerably and it causes an ache to settle itself low in Vera’s belly. To distract herself, Vera reaches for the glass of wine which Joan had poured. It does nothing to alleviate the ache, nor the mounting tension between them. Vera turns her attention back to her plate, and eats with urgency. The sooner that she is done with dinner, the sooner that she can help Joan with her medication and bed. The sooner that she can can go home, before she steps over the very fragile line that stands between them. 

 

But, it is apparent that recovering from a stab wound does nothing to affect Joan’s perceptiveness. “Why are you in such a hurry?” she asks, and Vera can clearly discern a not so subtle hint of irritation in her tone. 

 

“I’m not,” Vera lies, and does so poorly. 

 

Joan’s eyes darken and she places her fork and knife on either side of her plate. “You’re lying to me Vera.” 

 

Vera lets out a breath and mirrors Joan’s actions with her own cutlery. “Joan,” she sighs, “I...I’m just trying to hurry up so that I can help you with things and go home. I don’t want to impose,” she says. It’s a half-truth. 

 

She doesn’t want to push Joan. She doesn’t want the fragility of their last few days together to be affected by Vera’s persistent  feelings for the older woman. More than anything, she doesn’t want Joan to push her away again. 

 

Joan’s nostrils flare and her back straightens to the point that Vera is sure that she’s putting stress on the still-fresh stitches. “You’ve been inserting yourself into my home, into my daily routine, for four days and you have only  _ now _ considered that it might be an  _ imposition _ ?” she asks. 

 

“You’re more mobile now,” Vera reasons, “And I am sure that you might want some privacy now that you’re more independant.” 

 

“Independant?” Joan asks and Vera just knows that she’s said the wrong thing. “And yet not a half hour ago you were ready to lecture me about not being bedridden like some invalid.” 

 

Vera runs a frustrated hand through frizzy curls. “I’m sorry, I’m just...I’ve been exhausted lately. Everything that’s happened…,” she pauses, searching for the right words, “it’s just been very difficult. If you prefer, I will leave. I won’t come back tomorrow or the day after. I can recommend a good nurse who helped with mum,” she says softly. 

 

Joan’s hand yanks the napkin out of her lap and throws it on the table. Her fingers twist and pull at the pristine material and she refuses to make eye contact with her Deputy. “I didn’t say that Vera,” she says, notably agitated. 

 

“Y-you want me to stay?” Vera dares to ask. 

 

Joan rubs her lips together and her eyes flicker upwards to meet Vera’s. “You have proven yourself a...capable aide in the last few days. I would not...object were you t-to remain here.” 

 

Vera has to literally bite the inside of her cheek to prevent the face-splitting grin that is threatening to break out. “Mmhmm,” she mumbles, nodding her head fervently. “I’d be happy to, erm, remain. T-to help you and to uh, continue bringing you updates from work,” she manages. 

 

“Good,” Joan says curtly. She reaches for her napkin and arranges it in her lap once more. “Well, now that we’ve settled that, please, do continue to enjoy the perfectly decent cut of meat that you have rendered inedible with your incessant cooking.” 

 

This time, Vera does not try to stop her responding smile, nor the loud laughter that erupts from deep within her chest. It spills out of her lips to reside between them, and Vera dares to believe her own eyes when she sees a responding grin tugging at Joan’s lips as well. 

 


	15. Gratitude

 

Joan lets out a tense breath as Vera finishes changing the bandage on her back. Her little mouse offers whispered words of encouragement as she secures the new bandage in place.

 

“This is healing nicely Joan. The stitches will be out in no time!” she says cheerfully. 

 

Vera’s hands are exceedingly gentle against her back. Joan feels soft thumbs swirl around the edge of the bandage once it is in place and feels warm breath tickling the back of her neck. It’s all too much, and yet, not enough. As fiercely as she wants to slap Vera’s hands away, she wants to grasp them, pull them around her and place them over parts of herself that are nowhere near her injury. 

 

Vera’s invasion of her space, of her carefully crafted routine has been unnerving to say the least. And yet, there has been a growing part of Joan that craves her Deputy’s presence more and more each day. When Vera is here, Joan feels completely unnerved by her presence. When Vera is not, she feels an empty, terrible ache and immediate regret at having wished Vera away earlier. It’s confusing. Irrational. It gnaws away at Joan’s mind. It stretches her muscles tight until they are sore. It snaps her strong, sturdy bones with its force. 

 

It weakens her pathetically. It disturbs her. And yet…

 

And yet she cannot let go of her memories of Vera here in this bed. Of her naked, glowing limbs. Of her firm, small breasts, her flat stomach and narrow hips, her muscular arms and legs, and the jewel revealed to Joan as her toned thighs parted. Equally, she cannot let go of the memory of Vera’s frightened eyes as the degenerate, masked women threatened her life. She cannot let go of the memory of their ringleader trailing an intruding, malevolent tongue up Vera’s perfect neck; the image haunts her incessantly. 

 

“Perfect. I’ll just go wash up,” Vera says, breaking Joan’s musings. Joan feels cool air hitting her lower back as Vera’s warm body slides off of the bed. 

 

She slides her shirt back down and smooths the cotton against her lower back. It does nothing to alleviate the chill that she feels. Vera’s compact body always did give off an impressive amount of heat. 

 

Vera returns moments later, rolling the sleeves of her work shirt down her freshly washed forearms and hands. There is a lethargy to her motions that betrays the exhaustion which her forced smile is trying to hide. 

 

“Do you need some help with the pillows or do you want to try it on your own?” she asks sweetly.

 

“I can manage it on my own,” Joan says curtly. 

 

“Okay. This will be goodnight then.” Vera tries her very best to hide her disappointment. While she is thrilled to see Joan improving, she knows that further progression will bring this thing between them to an end. 

 

_ All good things must come to an end _ , Vera thinks bitterly. It has been stressful, aggravating, and yet, wonderful being allowed to be this close to Joan these last few days.  

 

“The files that you’ve brought me,” she gestures to the pile on her night table, “they have been most...helpful,” she says with difficulty. 

 

“You’re welcome Joan,” Vera says, with good humour. She’s keenly aware that expressions of gratitude are not something that Joan is either familiar with, or comfortable with and for some reason, she finds Joan’s botched attempts at expressing this emotion rather endearing.  Her hand reaches out to smooth back silver strands and tuck them behind Joan’s large ear; it’s an indulgent touch, but one that Joan has allowed, even leaned into, several times over the last few days. It is one that Vera would have likely not ever dared to initiate a week ago; her brush with death had done wonders for her self-doubt and anxiety, forging an almost entirely new woman. 

 

Joan opens her mouth, then closes it promptly; she turns her head slightly and her cheek brushes against Vera’s open palm. 

 

“You’re cold,” Vera says and frowns, “Would you like for me to fetch another blanket for you?” 

 

Instead of responding, Joan’s hand reaches out to swiftly open the button on Vera’s collar. Vera’s cheeks flush in response. Her tongue darts out to moisten her parted lips. Joan’s fingers are gentle yet insistent as they trace the scar that stands out against Vera’s warm skin. 

 

“Think it will make me look tougher?” she asks while laughing nervously. 

 

Joan’s other hand reaches out to pull Vera down to the edge of the bed by the waist. 

 

Vera sits, hips twisted so that she’s facing Joan, so that Joan’s piercing eyes can properly study the skin beneath her fingertips. 

 

“This should not have happened to you,” Joan says firmly. 

 

Vera’s hand comes up to gently pry Joan’s hand away from her skin; the contact is just too much. She guides Joan’s hand and her own to rest in her lap. “Joan,” she breathes, “what happened has happened. I survived, you survived, and we’re both damn lucky.” 

 

Joan looks down at their entwined hands. Hers is large and pale, smattered with discoloured marks, whereas Vera’s is small and soft, golden skin which is free of imperfections; she is beautiful. “I failed you Vera.” 

 

“What? What are you talking about?” Vera frowns. 

 

Vera’s thumb works in tight circles against Joan’s wrist. 

 

“I promised that I would protect you.”

 

Vera lets out a breathy sigh. “Are we doing this then? Are we finally acknowledging the elephant in the room?” she asks anxiously. 

 

“I-I don’t know what you mean,” Joan says stubbornly. Were they ready for this conversation? Was  _ she  _ ready? 

 

Joan’s predictably stubborn response gives Vera the push that she needs. It’s time for her to step up, to be brave and plunge into the terrifying depths of the unspoken conversations between them in order to clear the air, once and for all. She might lose Joan completely, and she knows this. She might lose her job, her sense of security; she could very well lose it all. After years of hanging onto the people and the things that weren’t worth it in the end, her mother, Fletch, her dreams of being made Governor, she’s finally ready to risk losing the one person that was worth  _ everything. _

 

Vera shakes her head. “You promised that, yes. And I promised you that I was yours. You did protect me and you nearly got yourself killed in the process. But first you hurt me, and then I pushed you too far. You broke my heart Joan. We’ve...both been cruel to one another. Said awful things. Done even worse things. And yet here we are, after everything, I’m here caring for you because you put yourself between me and that knife. Why Joan?” Vera wonders aloud. It all sounds even more chaotic, more ridiculous when spoken out loud. 

 

“I don’t know. I can’t explain it. It was... irrational of me,” Joan whispers. 

 

“I know, I was surprised that you did it too,” Vera admits, “I’ve been irrational as well. I knew that you had this wall built up around you, I knew that you were likely not to let me in, but I let myself fall in love with you anyway. You hurt me, just like I knew that you would, but I kept coming back, and I’m here now.” Thick, hot tears spill from Vera’s beautiful eyes and her full lower lip trembles slightly. “I found myself forgiving every horrible thing that you said and did to me the second that knife went through your back.” 

 

“I don’t deserve your forgiveness,” Joan says quickly. 

 

Her sweet, patient Vera had shown her nothing but acceptance, loyalty, tenderness, and yes, love, and Joan had sought to destroy her for it. Vera had given her devotion and unwavering faith, her vulnerability, her  _ trust. _ Vera had been a damned fool. Too soft, too loyal, too innocent. And Joan had been purposefully cruel. Meticulous in her execution of that cruelty. 

 

“You might not,” Vera reasons, “but you have it anyway. It isn’t about you. It’s about me, I want to forgive you and I don’t need your permission to do so.” 

 

“Why would you want that?” Joan asks. She wants to understand, to  _ know _ ; she  _ needs _ to. 

 

Vera shrugs. “Love makes you do irrational things I suppose. Isn’t that what they say?” 

 

Jianna had loved her. Her mother had loved her. Neither woman had lived for very long after loving her. “You shouldn’t,” Joan warns Vera, “You shouldn’t…” she can hardly bring herself to repeat Vera’s words. 

 

“No, I probably shouldn’t. But again, that’s not your choice to make.” Vera gives Joan’s hand a squeeze and then rises from her position on Joan’s bed. “Sleep well Joan. Call me if you need anything, okay?” 

  
Joan feels the chill return to her skin the moment that Vera’s hand removes itself from hers. As she watches her Deputy retreat from her room, she places her hand over her rapidly beating heart, willing it to calm, to cease its aching, tortuous rhythm in favour of something more controlled. Its defiant pounding prickles her fingertips, sending shivers up and down the length of her spine. 

 


	16. Chaos

 

On the seventh day, Joan finds herself pacing the length of her kitchen in tight, increasingly aggressive circles.

 

Vera had been prompt for each of her three daily visits in the days since Vera had confessed, once again, the extent of her... _attachment_.

 

She cannot _think_ the word, let alone comprehend its consequences.

 

This should not have happened. She should not have lost control. Her father has long since abandoned her, and left her to wallow in the aching reality of her own failure. She should have listened to him. She should have done a lot of things, none of which included allowing Vera to get so close.

 

Vera had exuded the same amount of attention and tenderness in her ministrations. She had dealt with Joan’s mounting displeasure at being confined to her home with patience and indulgent affection. And yet…

 

And yet Joan finds herself feeling more and more like an animal confined to a shrinking cage whenever Vera is around. Every kindness that Vera shows her, Joan’s mind takes it, twists it, and views it as a potential betrayal. Every benevolent touch feels malignant. They had fought frequently over the last several days and each time Vera would offer to leave, would dangle that over Joan’s head like a golden carrot, and it makes her resent Vera’s presence in her life even more. It makes her keenly aware of the power that Vera has over her, of the complete loss of control that Joan has suffered in her Deputy’s presence.

 

It makes her _want_ Vera in her life even more as well.

 

It makes her _hate_ Vera. It makes her hate herself for falling from such a powerful height. For so willingly exposing her underbelly to this stealthy enemy. For her obvious proclivity for self-destruction.

 

“Joan? There you are.” Vera’s voice trickles through the haze that clouds Joan’s mind. It is sweet, summer rain falling gently against the turbulent fire raging in Joan’s gut.

 

“Where else would I be? I can hardly leave my own home without being treated as an invalid,” Joan huffs.

 

Vera sighs. She should have expected this sort of response. Joan had become increasingly more aggravated in the last few days, snapping at Vera for the smallest of things. Jerking away stubbornly anytime Vera needed to change her bandage, complaining that Vera was treating her like a child; this morning had been so bad that Vera had quietly offered to not come back this evening if that’s what Joan wanted. Yet, at the mere mention of not returning, Joan’s eyes had hardened and her back had straightened uncomfortably and she had given an almost petulant, “That isn’t what I _said_ Vera.”

 

It was on her way to work when it had all clicked; Joan was testing her. Pushing her. Trying to see what Vera’s limits were, if she had any at all.

 

She reaches for a teacup with more force than is necessary and shoots Vera a lethal glare before turning her attention to her kettle. “I hardly know what you will do with yourself after tomorrow.”

 

“Tomorrow? Wha-” Vera pauses and Joan’s message sinks in.

 

Tomorrow would be the last day of what Joan had referred to as her ‘house arrest.’ Tomorrow would be the last day that Vera had a proper excuse to spend half of her day with Joan. Tomorrow would be the last day that Vera had a proper excuse to touch Joan.

 

 _She’s afraid that I won’t come back_ , Vera realizes and her heart swells with exasperated love for the impossible woman in front of her.

 

Presently, Joan’s back is facing Vera, rigid as can be. Her eyes are trained on the warming kettle in front of her and her defined cheekbones are pink with fabricated anger. Vera notes the way that Joan refuses to meet her eyes, how she stands as close to the stove as she dares, putting as much distance between herself and Vera.

 

 _It’s now or never Bennett,_ she tells herself. Vera takes a bold step forward and places her hands on either side of Joan’s hips, then presses her forehead against the middle of Joan’s back; she breathes in deeply, inhaling the clean, fresh scent of Joan’s laundry and soap. “Joan, I know what you’re doing. And you needn’t do it.”

 

Joan pushes back against Vera’s affectionate gesture, stubbornly separating herself from the pint sized woman. “You can read my mind now, can you?” she hisses.

 

“Yes, in fact I can,” Vera says, causing Joan to spin around at her defiance. Vera places confidant hands on her own hips and looks up at Joan, unafraid. “Right now you are furious with me because I am refusing to let you sulk over the fact that after tomorrow, this,” she gestures between them, “potentially goes back to what it was before the riot.”

 

Joan lifts her chin and arches her magnificent eyebrow at Vera. Vera takes that as a hint to continue, “You don’t want things to go back to how they were. You’re afraid,” she observes.

 

“Don’t make assumptions Vera,” Joan warns. Her eyes glint dangerously.

 

“Joan,” Vera whispers, “it doesn’t have to go back to the way that it was. I...I can still come and visit with you. We can still have dinner together. And you can come and visit me too!” Vera’s ears turn pink and her tongue darts out to moisten her nervously trembling lower lip.

 

“Whatever gave you the assumption that I wanted that?” Joan asks in her most icy, most indifferent tone.

 

“Oh?” Vera challenges. “You don’t want me here? Then tell me to leave. Go on.” Vera crosses her arms over her chest and stands up as tall as she can. “Say it, and I’ll go.”

 

Chaos swirls through Joan’s mind. _Tell her to leave. Make Vera leave. Physically remove her from this house if you must._ Yet, she remains still.

 

“You’ve gotten angry with me many times over this past week, but you’ve never actually wanted me to leave. And now, I actually _won’t_ be here every day, and you’re upset,” Vera continues on perceptively.

 

“Upset?” Joan scoffs, “I am not upset Vera. Don’t flatter yourself.”

 

“Fine, I’ll go then. If me leaving doesn’t upset you, then there is no need for me to come back tomorrow,” Vera says. She turns on her heel and takes a step towards the front door but is stopped by a heavy, dominating hand on her shoulder.

 

“How _dare_ you.” Vera feels herself being spun around and pushed up against the edge of the countertop. “You invade my home, disrupt my routine, make yourself a familiar fixture in my life, and then you threaten to take it all away!” Joan’s eyes are wild and shining with long-buried pain. Vera recalls the last time that Joan had pushed her up against this countertop. She recalls the brutality of Joan’s touch, the anger and force, and how much she had craved it, _begged_ for it.

 

She also recalls how her heart had ached when Joan had pushed her away; how she had sobbed herself to sleep every night for days afterwards.

 

“Oh Joan, I’m not threatening you,” Vera says softly. Her hand reaches out to lace their fingers together overtop her shoulders, but Joan jerks away at the touch. Her hands fly off of Vera’s shoulders and grasp her wrists, pulling them down and pinning them on either side of them on the counter.

 

“It’s all you’ve done since...since…” Joan’s lower lip trembles and her nostrils flare.

 

Since Vera stormed into her life, flipped it upside down, rightside up, then _demanded_ that Joan be content with the mess that had been made of it. Since she had the audacity to slip out of her designated role as Joan’s pawn, only to make a pawn out of Joan. Since she had made love to her. Since she had coaxed the lonely, dark secrets that had been prickling beneath Joan’s skin to rise and crest against her, engulfing her completely.

 

Vera can feel the anger rolling off of Joan to crash into her like turbulent waves on a humid beach and in that moment, she decides to take one final risk. She uses the counter which she is currently pressed up against as leverage as she leans forward on the tips of her toes. Her lips ghost the edge of Joan’s jaw and in this moment she could weep with joy at how exquisite Joan feels beneath her lips. “I love you Joan. I don’t know why you won’t let yourself be loved. I wish that you would just let me love you, but I won’t push you. I can’t demand something from you that you aren’t ready to give me. I know now that it was wrong of me to push you...before,” she says sadly. “But that doesn’t mean that I’m giving up on you Joan. Quite the opposite in fact,” Vera promises.

 

Joan releases her hold on Vera and takes a step backwards. Her cheeks are flushed and her lower lip is trembling. Her head is downcast and her cheeks are wet with the outpouring of her pain. She wants to believe Vera. She wants to find the truth in her words. In the earnest sincerity of her kisses and of her touch.

 

Joan wants to trust Vera. And the realization of _just_ how far she has fallen is too much for her. Joan Ferguson _doesn’t_ trust. And yet the stubborn, and greatly resented organ in her chest expands and contracts with such vicious longing to be set _free_ that it nearly brings Joan to her knees.

 

“You called me heartless, and then you left me,” Joan says in a voice so small and broken that Vera can hardly believe that it is coming from her.

 

Vera’s breath catches in her throat as mortification washes over her. “Oh Joan...I…” She had indeed called Joan heartless. And in that moment, she had meant it; she cannot deny it.

 

Joan is shaking her head and struggling to force her slumped shoulders to straighten. “You were right Vera and that’s why...You shouldn’t...shouldn’t-”

 

“Love you?” Vera asks as she takes a step forward. Her hands are gentle and non-demanding as they reach up to cup Joan’s face. Her thumbs are exceedingly tender as they brush away fresh, hot tears. “Joan, I was so wrong to say that. I was angry with you. I wanted _everything_ from you and couldn’t see past my own needs to understand that I was pushing you too fast, too far. I was hurt, and I wanted to hurt you, to make you feel the pain that I was feeling.” Vera shakes her head and blinks away her own tears.

 

“I don’t understand how...I’m not one to...” Joan stutters. Vera feels an ache deep in her heart as she realizes how truly frightened and uncomfortable Joan is in this moment.

 

Joan’s hands come up to rest overtop Vera’s and Vera notes that they are trembling slightly.

 

“It’s okay,” Vera assures her.

 

Joan dips her head and brushes her lips against Vera’s, and Vera feels a resounding explosion of tenderness and yearning inside of her. She forces her lips to remain patient as Joan gently, almost experimentally, merges their flesh again and again. Joan’s kisses are tentative, yet resoundingly tender; her eyes remain open, and Vera can feel the intensity of Joan’s gaze burn right through her.

 

“Don’t leave,” Joan’s smokey voice tickles the corner of Vera’s mouth. She is at the point of no return, and she knows it. If Vera were to leave her now, she would take whatever remains of Joan with her. Joan will not survive this loss. And with that knowledge, she places another tender kiss against Vera’s lower lip.

 

“Vera, you will not leave me,” she repeats. But they both know that Joan can hardly command Vera around anymore. Vera will leave her if she wants, and Joan will not survive it. Joan does not _want_ to survive it.

 

Vera nods her head wordlessly and Joan feels her heart burst forth from its oppressive confinement and land, pumping and bleeding, into Vera’s hands.

 

Joan’s lips descend on Vera’s jaw, her neck, her collarbone, and the simple task of standing upright becomes suddenly far too difficult for Vera. Her legs tremble and a groan escapes the taut skin muscles of her neck. It is only Joan’s sturdy weight and hold that keeps her upright.

 

“You’re mine, aren’t you Vera?” Joan breathes the words against Vera’s neck, yet unlike every other time she’s asked this question, Vera can clearly detect a hint of uncertainty.

 

Vera’s hands come up to tangle in the soft, thick hair that falls around them like curtains, protecting them from the world around them.

 

“Yes,” Vera whispers fiercely, “I’m _yours_.”

 


	17. Burst

 

 

They shatter _all_ the previous rules of the game.

 

Joan pulls Vera to her with an urgency that hardly surprises her anymore; it’s been brewing for weeks, months even, perhaps even longer. Perhaps there has always been a part of Joan that has yearned for Vera. Some part of her that was forever waiting for Vera’s compact body, her hard muscles and soft skin, her ocean blue eyes and full lips to fill the ugly void in the darkest pits of her soul.

 

Her clothing is removed with the same attentiveness and care that Vera always exudes when changing her bandage. Every inch of her body is bared to Vera’s hungry eyes, mouth, and hands. She is being _devoured_.

 

“May I touch you here? Please?” Vera asks and the sweetness of her words, the sincerity in her eyes, they melt the remaining icy barriers around Joan’s exterior and Joan wantonly presses her neglected flesh into Vera’s capable hands. Vera’s hands do not tremble as they cup her breasts. It is _divine_ . It is the purest joy that Joan has ever felt in her life. Vera’s mouth is hot and wet and _perfect_ as it holds Joan’s flesh between her lips.

 

The back of Joan’s legs hit the mattress and Vera gently guides Joan to sit down before quickly ripping her own shirt and skirt off. Joan’s own hands itch with the regret of not having been able to complete that herself.

 

Vera’s legs are on either side of Joan’s hips but Joan does not feel confined. She feels safe. She feels like she has always belonged here, in the space between Vera’s lithe limbs. Her mind swirls with confused conflict over the juxtaposing sensations sweeping through her, and the decades of her intentional isolation. Her hands trail up the solid muscles of Vera’s thighs and she pulls Vera’s narrow hips closer to her. The need to be closer to this woman is urgent. Insistent. All-consuming. This is madness. This is chaos. This is _everything._ Had Vera felt this way when Joan had touched her? Had Jianna? And what about the smattering of women in between? How could they have _possibly_ felt like this? How could this ethereal feeling ever be duplicated? How could it ever exist in more than just this one moment in time?

 

How could she have gone her whole life without knowing this feeling?

 

Vera’s mouth releases Joan’s breast and those beautifully pliable lips of hers map out Joan’s throat. Her hot centre rubs against Joan’s stomach as she gently straddles Joan’s legs. “I want to make love to you. Will you let me?” Vera asks gently as her mouth finds Joan’s once more. Her tongue slips into Joan’s mouth. Joan’s hands tangle in Vera’s sweaty curls and she groans.

 

In this moment, Vera is on top of her, around her, _inside_ her. She never wants Vera to leave her. This is so different than before, when Vera had pierced her shield in the sacred space of her office. When Vera had sunk to her knees while they both still wore the shackles that confined them to Wentworth just as much as they confined the women to that place.

 

It hadn’t felt right, losing control with the heavy shoulders of her Governor’s uniform resting against her skin, with the firm leather of her executive chair providing the resistance to her arching back, with the file of her former and deceased lover sitting in the drawer right in front of them. It hadn’t felt right at all.

 

This is different, so very different. Far more frightening and yet, somehow, so _right_.

 

“Joan?” Vera’s gentle voice brings Joan back to the present. Her hands are on either side of Joan’s face, her rounded nose is millimeters from her own, her eyes have darkened in a way that they remind Joan of glinting sapphires. Vera’s lips descend on her dewy brow and Joan can feel the shaky breath that Vera is attempting to control land against her heated skin.

 

“What do you want?” Vera asks patiently.

 

Joan’s grip in Vera’s hair tightens. She wants this. She wants Vera. She wants _everything_.

 

Her mouth latches onto the silken sinew of Vera’s neck. “Mine,” she growls as her hands hold Vera to her. Her tongue traces the freshly acquired scar along Vera’s neck.

 

“Yes Joan,” Vera pants. She rips one of Joan’s hands out of her own hair and shoves it roughly over a bra-clad breast. She nearly sees stars as Joan’s long fingers pull and pinch her nipples through the flimsy cotton and she can feel the electric jolt travel all the way down to her moistening cunt. She had missed this, immeasurably. Her own hands are far gentler as they map out the expanse of Joan’s back, she stretches her arms to their limit to reach the edge of the dressing on Joan’s lower back.

 

Joan releases Vera’s neck and gasps. Her head falls against Vera’s collarbone and her fingers still.

 

“And you’re mine,” Vera says between heaving breaths.

  
Joan responds by ripping Vera’s bra off and pulling her lover to her for another searing kiss.

 


	18. Exhale

 

It’s a while before either one of them moves. 

 

Joan lays on her stomach, heaving and trembling, limbs slick with sweat and far sweeter secretions while Vera lays next to her, curled up on her side and with one hand splayed across Joan’s back. Her own bronzed muscles glimmer in the intimate lighting of Joan’s bedroom. Their definition only further enhanced by the thorough workout they’d just taken part in. Both of their limbs stick out in all directions, like ragdolls tossed aside after an enthusiastic tea party; there is an intrinsic beauty in how messy they both look and feel, Joan realizes. 

 

Vera can’t stop smiling. Joan notes how the corners of her lips keep twitching and how her sharp teeth keep darting out to silence them. Her cheekbones are saturated with a bright flush and her eyes seem to sparkle far brighter than they ever have. Joan can hardly fathom that  _ she _ is the reason for Vera’s joy. 

 

She is beautiful, Joan thinks, knowing that her mind will never again allow her to forget, or take for granted, this observation. 

 

For her part, moving seems highly unlikely. Her every muscle aches and burns and she can feel the harsh, delicious suction from Vera’s mouth still on her neck, her collar, her breasts, her thighs, her cunt. Her little mouse had proven to be insatiable, unrelenting in her passion and in her hunger, not stopping until at last, Joan had collapsed against the sheets and her eyes had slid shut. 

 

She hasn’t moved since. 

 

She can’t recall if Vera had climaxed as well before she fell forwards. Her mind is hazy, but she recalls Vera kneeling behind her, her mouth at Joan’s neck, her front flush with Joan’s arching back, one hand twisting and roughly massaging Joan’s breast, while the other wrapped around her hips to pump three fingers in and out of her dripping, greedy sex. She recalls feeling Vera’s breasts pressed up against her back, Vera’s damp curls rubbing against the solid muscle of her ass, but the moment that Vera had added a fourth finger, her whole body had capitulated to the unbelievable pleasure mounting inside of her and she had fallen forward, cunt spasming and crying out, even as the motion had separated her from Vera’s delicious fingers. 

 

In fact, she had barely been able to touch Vera after bringing her to climax once with her mouth and fingers. Vera had been unrelenting in her mission to make Joan’s thighs quiver and her back arch and her body weep with glorious satisfaction not once, not twice, but  _ three _ times. 

 

“We should change this,” Vera’s voice cracks as she mutters against Joan’s shoulder. Her fingertips graze the bandage on Joan’s back which is so damp that the gentle nudge from Vera causes it to slide down Joan’s hip. Vera giggles against Joan’s shoulder and Joan nods her permission into the pillow, Vera inches forward and kisses Joan’s forehead. “I’ll be a minute,” she promises before rolling over to stretch her over-exerted limbs and carefully sit up. 

 

Still, Joan does not move. She has grown accustomed to Vera moving around her for this simple, yet undeniably intimate task. She almost regrets that she is having the stitches removed tomorrow. Almost. 

 

There is a pleasant warmth prickling at her skin, one that she has never felt before. Perhaps it is the kind that is only subsequent to nearly three hours of making love and multiple orgasms. Perhaps it is the kind that is subsequent to decades of loneliness. Perhaps it is her body silently rejoicing after being denied Vera’s touch. 

 

Whatever it is, Joan is sure that she does not deserve it. 

 

Vera returns with her usual medical supplies. She inserts several kisses into her normal routine, including the ones placed with the utmost care all around the healing wound. “Thank goodness we didn’t rip any of these,” Vera giggles as she secures the bandage in place. 

 

“You’re sure?” Joan rasps. It’s the first thing she’s said in hours that hasn’t included Vera’s name, a plea for Vera to fuck her harder, or any grunting, moaning, or shrieking. 

 

“Quite sure,” Vera says cheerfully. She makes quick work of disposing of her supplies and crawling back onto the bed to lay in her previous position. Her hand gently brushes Joan’s hair, which is hopelessly tangled, out of her face and this time, she does not suppress the smile that breaks out across her face. 

 

“You’re so beautiful,” Vera sighs. Her thumb is gentle as it traces the curve of Joan’s ear. Her hand lingers for a moment, before trailing down her neck, shoulder, and back before settling overtop the swell of her ass. Her flush deepens and her next words are rough and thick, “Every part of you. Christ Joan…” she breaks off and shakes her head, a gentle laugh escaping her lips. Her eyes are searching and tender as she leans forward to kiss Joan’s cheekbone; she feels Joan’s eyelashes tickle her brow and she feels the warm exhale that escapes Joan’s lips. 

 

Finally, Joan summons the strength to move. She carefully rolls over and pulls Vera to her. She is drawn to Vera in a way that she can hardly describe; she simultaneously resents and yearns for her need to be connected to this woman. Vera’s limbs instantly tangle with hers as their mouths connect forcefully. Joan’s legs are nearly twice the length of Vera’s, she can feel the soles of Vera’s delicate feet tickling the spot just behind her knees. Every part of Vera is so much smaller, so much more delicate, and yet Vera clings to her with a strength that rivals Joan’s. 

 

Vera pushes Joan onto her back, but brings one gloriously long, shapely leg up and over her hip, alleviating the pressure against Joan’s freshly bandaged wound. Vera’s hand kneads Joan’s thick thighs and presses Joan’s hips against her flat, solid middle. 

 

“Mmm...I don’t ever want to stop...,” Vera mumbles against Joan’s chin. 

 

Her mouth starts to trail lower, and unbelievably Joan feels the blissful ascension of pleasure as Vera’s tongue begins to tease her hips and inner thighs. As Vera’s mouth settles over her cunt once again, Joan hazily wonders where exactly her Deputy had become so accomplished in the art of making love to women, but the thought is fleeting because Vera’s tongue is unrelenting against her pulsing clit and within just a few minutes, Joan is gasping out her release.  _ Again _ . 

 

That makes  _ four _ , Joan’s mind calculates. 

 

Joan feels tears sliding down her cheeks and she clenches her fists on either side of her hips. It’s too much, this tenderness, this pleasure, this warmth, it’s too  _ much _ . Joan doesn’t deserve it. She doesn’t deserve any of it. 

 

“Vera, come here,” Joan barks as Vera nuzzles her inner thighs.

 

Vera deposits one last, lingering kiss against Joan’s sore clit before climbing up Joan’s spectacular body and meeting Joan’s gaze. It’s then that Vera can see the skittish, hesitant look in Joan’s eyes and her blood runs cold. 

 

Vera lays down next to Joan, propping herself up on one arm, the other rests across Joan’s waist. “Joan,” Vera starts, worry clearly evident in her tone, “what is wrong?” 

 

“I...this…,” Joan furrows her brow and her eyes fall away from Vera’s face. She does not push Vera away from her, but she also does not seek out any further connection with her. 

 

“Have I pushed you too far?” Vera asks timidly. She feels mortification rising in her gut. 

 

“Vera,” Joan looks up at Vera again, “I don’t know how to...how to organize this. How to…,” she huffs frustratedly and chews on her lower lip. “I don’t know how to be what you want,” she finally says. 

 

Her father had wanted a soldier. Jianna had wanted a protector. Joan had failed both of them, and she is sure to fail Vera as well. 

 

Vera wants a lover, that much is obvious. Joan does not know how to love without destroying the object of her affection. 

 

“I want you Joan, just you. The good and the not so good,” Vera says patiently. 

 

Joan shakes her head. “I can’t be what you need,” she insists stubbornly. 

 

“And how do you know what I need, hmm?” Vera asks gently. Her hand leaves the dip in Joan’s waist to cup Joan’s cheek. “Until I met you, I didn’t even really know what it was that I needed. I know that we’ve had our difficulties, and I know that you might never want a traditional relationship with me, but if I have to choose between living with you and living without you, well, the choice is pretty clear Joan.”  

 

“That is highly illogical,” Joan persists, “I’ve harmed you, and I meant to do it. I wanted you to hurt Vera. I’ll do it again. I want you,” she admits, “But I’ll destroy you. I destroy everything.” Her eyes are wild with the need for Vera to understand. 

 

“You will not destroy me because I will not let you,” Vera says. “You will push me away, yes. You will run hot and cold with me. You’ll barely tolerate me at times and I’ll hate you for all of that. But then you’ll do things like literally place yourself between me and a knife. You’ll protect me fiercely and do it selflessly. You’ll pretend not to be upset when I threaten to leave. You’ll let me walk away when I’m hurt because you’ll convince yourself that it’s what is best for me, and I’ll love you for all those things.” 

 

“How can you be certain?” Joan asks stubbornly. 

 

“Because we’ve already been on this insane ride once, and now we’re getting back on it, but I know what’s ahead. And I know what it’s like going at it without you and...and I don’t want to do that again. I still don’t know why you won’t let me love you, but I am willing to spend as long as it takes to find out, and to convince you that what I feel is real.” 

 

Joan opens her mouth to respond, but struggles to find the words. She clamps it shut and averts her gaze. 

 

Vera’s lips are soft and non demanding as they intercept the drying wetness on Joan’s cheeks. “And I know that it is highly likely that you will engage in this self-flagellation every time that you  _ do  _ let me love you in a ploy to scare me away. But you can’t scare me away, not anymore.” 

 

Joan purses her lips and lifts her chin stubbornly in a way that reminds Vera of a petulant child. It is unnerving just how adorable this intimidating, sexy, dangerous woman can be. “Christ Joan, you’re killing me,” she mutters adoringly as she laughs softly against Joan’s cheek, “that was not meant as a challenge!” 

 

“When the prisoners had you I thought...I thought that I was going to lose you,” Joan admits softly. Vera wiggles closer to her and rests her head on top of Joan’s collar. “I couldn’t fail you, not  _ you _ ,” she continues. Her hand comes up to tangle in Vera’s hair and she holds Vera close to her urgently beating heart. “But despite my intentions, I did fa-”

 

“You didn’t fail Joan,” Vera whispers fiercely. 

 

“I want this Vera, I do. But I don’t know how to go about things the right way. And that is...uncomfortable. I’m not one to make friends, and I’ve never done this before. Not properly,” she reveals. 

 

Vera nods her understanding against Joan’s gentle hand. “This is all quite new to me as well,” Vera points out. “And I am terrified, but I won’t let it stop me. I trust you Joan, I’m just asking for you to trust me as well, please?” she softly begs. 

 

Joan takes a deep breath and exhales shakily. “I would like to Vera, but…” she shakes her head and huffs frustratedly at her persistent inarticulation. She doesn’t even believe in the concept of trust, and yet Vera expects her to exude it. It’s yet another impossibility that Vera wants from her, yet it’s also another that she  _ wants _ to strive for. 

 

Vera senses her difficulty and soothes, “That’s enough for me Joan. More than enough.” 

 

Relief settles in Joan’s gut and its calm warmth slides like thick honey across her every jittery nerve. Her eyes are heavy with the exhaustion from being both physically and mentally pushed beyond her limit this evening. Vera’s lips are against her cheek again, whispering words of tender devotion and gratitude as Joan feels the covers being drawn around them. A question is posed, and Vera looks at her with barely-concealed nervousness. 

 

“Yes, I do,” Joan admits and Vera relaxes back against the pillows. 

 

“If that changes, I can leave,” Vera offers, “I’m not threatening you,” she hastily adds. 

 

Joan pulls Vera towards her and presses her lips against Vera’s well defined shoulder. “Stay. I want you to,” she breathes. 

 

Vera joyously complies. 

 


	19. First

“I’ve missed that look. I have always loved the way that uniform looks on you,” Vera purrs from her reclined position in Joan’s bed. Her hair is a wild testament to their activities from the last two nights. The sheets slip and exposes her beautiful breasts to Joan’s hungry eyes; breasts that are covered in red bite marks and a few deepening bruises. 

 

Joan clears her throat roughly as she tucks her freshly pressed uniform shirt into her trousers. There is something primal and insatiable that stirs deep in her gut at the sight of her Deputy, naked and covered in markings from their nonstop lovemaking of the last 36 hours, wearing a glorious smile and sprawled out across her big bed. Many,  _ many  _ times over the last day and a half Vera had capitulated to Joan’s touch, glowing and crying out her devotion to her Governor. 

 

To her  _ lover _ . 

 

She wears proof of Joan’s hold over her, proudly. Deliberate markings stand out against her golden skin, indentations of teeth sink into the hard muscle of limbs that Vera had spread wide open to receive Joan’s ardent affection. And yet, every bite against Vera’s sinew, every harsh suck of her silken skin had left an imprint of its own against the aching muscle in Joan’s chest. 

 

The scratches down Joan’s back and the few welts on her inner thighs indeed sting and throb in delicious pain as well, but her heart burns with something far more fierce. Far more intoxicating. Vera has managed to mark her in ways that she did not believe possible and this realization is terrifying, yet also strangely...freeing. 

 

“Vera,” Joan grunts in warning. Vera is looking at her like she just might swallow her whole, and they both know that Joan is highly likely to let her. “I have a meeting with Mr. Channing this morning, a debrief.” Joan waves her hand at the rumpled bedding around Vera’s sculpted legs. “Given that you are not on the roster today, I trust that you are capable of fixing this, yes?” she asks, ears flushing. She sounds like...and she  _ hates _ that her mind has even drawn the comparison...but she sounds like a husband rushing off to work, apologetically leaving his wife to look after their mutual mess. 

 

Vera clearly makes the comparison as well. She arches her back and points her toes, stretching her taut muscles. “Mmm, yes Joan, I am sure that I am more than capable of tidying up while you go off to work and leave me here with the house,” she says, eyes twinkling and voice full of mirth. She chuckles at Joan’s predictable response, at the semi-annoyed, semi-flustered huff that her lover exhales, and at the red flooding her high cheekbones. She would love to tease Joan further, to make some other sort of domestic joke, but while the euphoria of her many delicious orgasms of the past few days has her feeling dizzy and giddy, she knows better than to push too far. More and more she understands that the darkest parts of Joan’s heart are actually the most fragile, that her rigid independence and efficiency are actually walls put up to protect a very damaged woman. 

 

Vera sits up fully and crawls to the end of the bed, where Joan is standing in front of her full length mirror as she adjusts her tie. She sighs against Joan’s shoulder and feels her love for this woman fill her to the brim. 

 

“Let me?” Vera breathes against Joan’s sturdy shoulder. Her lips graze the starched shirt, seeking out the warmth of the skin beneath it. She is drawn to Joan like a moth to the flame, there is no point in denying it anymore. She has always been drawn to Joan, to the enigmatic personality that shields the vulnerable, generous lover, to the sharp wit that is merely a precursor to a far more impressive and higher intellect, to the strong features and sharp angles which so beautifully contrast the soft, womanly figure that they share. 

 

Her hands come to rest on either side of Joan’s waist and she wantonly presses her breasts into Joan’s upper back. 

 

Joan’s hands falter, and she allows Vera to spin her around carefully. She happily accepts the gentle, teasing pecks that Vera places all along her jaw and chin before stealing a quick one against her lips. Her hands reach down to cup Vera’s pert ass and she delights in the sudden giggle that the motion inspires from Vera. She cannot resist running her hands over Vera’s warm skin, and she cannot help but marvel at how she had managed to survive denying herself this necessity for so long. 

 

“Concentrate now Governor,” Vera jokingly chastises. Her hands are quick and efficient in fixing Joan’s tie but they linger on Joan’s broad shoulders before coming up to cup Joan’s jaw. “I can be in later this afternoon if you like?” she offers. 

 

Joan brings one of Vera’s hands up to her lips. “You’ve been on an eight day rotation, I will not have you incapacitating yourself,” she says firmly. 

 

Her lips are tender against Vera’s knuckles and Vera wishes that she could drag the pair of them back onto the bed. “I’d be fine,” she tries to argue but the steely look in her Governor’s eyes puts an end to it. 

 

Joan leaves another lingering kiss against Vera’s skin before reluctantly parting from her gentle lover to reach for her jacket. “You’ll uh, be here this evening when I return?” she asks with forced casualty; the slight quiver of her lip and the arch of her brow give away the fear bubbling just below her surface. Would Vera want to go home now that she was completely mobile and free of her stitches? Would Vera secretly be relieved now that she didn’t have to look after her older, sick lover? 

 

“Would you like me to be?” Vera asks carefully. 

 

She would move in with Joan tomorrow if Joan would allow it, but she also wants to respect the older woman’s need for privacy, as well as time to adjust to the shift in their dynamic. Vera finds herself biting her lower lip to stop herself from giggling out loud at the realization that she’s become one of  _ those  _ women who sleep with other women - the sort that move in with their partners and adopt a dozen cats all within the first few days of first becoming intimate. Yes, the last few days have hardly been a first in terms of sexual intimacy for the two of them, yet it somehow feels more legitimate than their murky beginnings all those months ago. It’s as if they’ve both been born again and within a slightly less vague context. Where secrecy and confusion once surrounded them, Vera detects hope and a certain commitment to do right by one another, and it makes her heart flutter excitedly. She had been right not to give up on this infuriating woman; the pain of repeated heartache and prickly misunderstandings between them have made  _ this _ , this beautiful intimacy and burgeoning connection between them so much sweeter, she realizes proudly. 

 

“I assume that you don’t have other plans,” Joan says and it comes off more harshly than she intended. She can see the flicker of hurt in Vera’s eyes and she balls her fists, digging her blunt nails into the fleshy mound of her palm as punishment. “I-” she falters, “I would like for you to stay. If you do not have any other plans that is.” 

 

Vera clears her throat and plays with a fistful of Joan’s sheets. She deliberately ignores Joan’s eyes. She loves this woman, she loves her with every muscle, bone, and tissue in her body but she had promised  _ both  _ of them that she would not allow Joan to destroy her. It  _ would  _ be easier to ignore biting comments like this one, but Vera reminds herself that ignoring the hurt that they both know Joan will throw at her will only bring them back to where they once were. She loves this woman, and loves her so fiercely that she  _ refuses _ to allow them to digress. 

 

Joan tugs her jacket down, bringing the bottom part to stretch across her wide hips and she clenches her jaw uncomfortably. “D-do you have other plans?” she asks quietly. Vera can practically feel the wheels of her brilliant mind turning and turning, trying to calculate exactly where her error had just been, and how best to get on with the damage control. 

 

“I do not,” Vera says, “but that is not an assumption for you to make,” she says pointedly, finally, meeting Joan’s eyes. 

 

Joan feels heat prickling at the back of her neck from just under her collar. She licks her lips nervously and takes a tentative step back towards Vera. “Vera,” she breathes, “I…” _ I warned you about this. About me. I warned you that I couldn’t love you without hurting you _ , she wants to scream. 

 

Gentle hands cup her face again and she feels the blessed forgiveness of Vera’s kisses against her lips. She closes her eyes and exhales her relief and gratitude against her Vera, and she wraps her arms around her deputy’s narrow waist, bringing her delightfully naked body flush against her pristine uniform. Joan can feel the unspoken words passing between them as their bodies heal the wounds that words can so carelessly cause.  _ You did warn me, and I told you that I love you anyway,  _ Vera’s gentle caresses remind her. 

 

Vera’s lips move to her jaw and she can feel the tickle of Vera’s breath as she whispers, “If you carry on like this I promise you that I will ensure that you are late for your meeting.” 

 

Joan chuckles breathlessly and pulls back to regard the beauty in her arms. “I am  _ never _ late,” she says with no small amount of pride. “Vera,” her tone turns serious, needing to right this minor wrong with something other than just her actions, “this is…,”  _ Heavenly. Agonizing. Confusing. Painful. Beautiful.  _ “Difficult for me,” she settles on. 

 

“I know,” Vera affirms. “It’s difficult for me too you know. I’m just...I don’t know, more transparent about it?” she shrugs. 

 

How far Vera Bennett has come since the days of conjuring an illusionary boyfriend to make her feel like perhaps she was worth loving. How far she has come still from the days of foolishly making excuses for Matthew Fletcher’s oafish behaviour and poor treatment. How far she has come even since she first allowed Joan into the sanctuary of her body and of her heart. Her mother had been wrong all along, she thinks gleefully. Vera  _ is  _ worth something, she is worth quite a lot in fact. She is deserving of love and of someone to share it with. Despite their rocky beginnings, Joan had absolutely been right about that. 

 

“You’re my first...proper...uh,” Vera blushes deeply and dips her head embarrassedly, “well, you know,” she mutters nervously. 

 

She’s not sure how Joan feels about the words assigned to one’s sexual and romantic partner. She certainly knows what she’d  _ like  _ to refer to Joan as, but this was a larger conversation to be had at a time when Joan didn’t need to be out the door in a matter of minutes. 

 

Joan feels a ripple in her chest at the hint of the conversation looming over them. 

 

“Well go on then,” Vera says brightly. She pecks Joan on the cheek and the nervous smile on her face indicates that she won’t push Joan, not on this, not now. “I have a bed to make and you have a meeting to attend,” she says gently. 

  
Joan nods her head curtly and steps away from the temptress in front of her. She keeps her eyes locked on Vera for as long as she can as she retreats from her bedroom. Her lips and cheeks tingle delightfully from where Vera had made her mark and she slips into her car, she can feel the unmistakably airiness of optimism surrounding her. 

 


	20. Plan

It takes Vera three more days to finally go home for more than just an hour, the exact duration of time needed to quickly throw some clothing into an overnight bag and check to see if the milk was yet expired in the fridge. 

 

The overnight bag had been procured at Joan’s insistence. 

 

“It would make sense if you commuted from here, I do live closer.” Joan had delivered the succinct argument with her chin held high and her eyebrow arched, almost as if she had been daring Vera to argue back. 

 

Joan had spent her adult life living as a contently solitary creature, however the thought of returning to that solitude was somehow unacceptable. Vera returning home to sleep in her uncomfortable childhood bed, to wash in a shower with cracked tiles and poor water pressure, when she had all that she needed  _ here _ , in this bed, in this home...it was  _ unacceptable _ . 

 

“Joan,” Vera had laughed brightly as she reclined against Joan in bed, “I can hardly fit into any of your clothing. Your legs alone are twice the length of mine.” To emphasize her point, Vera had lowered her mouth again to a deliciously long limb and measured its length in kisses. 

 

Both women had become understandably distracted at that point, and it had been some time later, when they were both sweaty and panting and breathless, that Joan had picked up where they had left off. 

 

“Then bring some clothing here.” 

 

It had been stated as though it were the most obvious answer in the world. As if Joan were simultaneously expressing to Vera that water was wet and fire was hot, the sky was blue and the universe was vast. In some ways, she  _ was _ making an equally obvious statement. Vera was unobjectionable as far as housemates went, not that Joan had any actual experience with this sort of living arrangement prior to these last few weeks. Vera had invaded her space. Her home. Her sanctuary. And yet Joan had allowed it, begrudgingly at first, but any resentment that Joan had felt towards having Vera in her home no longer existed within her. Vera was considerate of Joan’s need for silence and solitude within her home, yet the moment that Joan felt that solitude slide into loneliness, Vera was suddenly at her side, offering her a cup of tea exactly the way she liked it, landing a kiss at her jaw, with a comment about what they should make for dinner. Vera was like a warm throw over her aching bones, always wrapping around her just as the chill was setting in. 

 

This morning, Joan rolls over in sweet anticipation of being able to feel her deputy’s delightfully soft skin, only to find the bed empty of Vera. On the pillow, a note in Vera’s delicate hand writing stares back at her as a poor substitute for the woman herself. 

 

_ Joan, _

 

_ Will has called in ill today so I will be taking his shift. Not to worry, we’ll manage just fine without him and I certainly don’t mind the added hours. You are not on today’s rotation, and I can give you two reasons why you should take advantage of an early day off in the week: the budget not allowing for you to pull any overtime and your doctor who has instructed you to return to work on light duty this week.  _

 

_ I will have to go home tonight after work. I think that the contents of my fridge have finally gone bad and that it is in need of cleaning out. To be honest, the entire house is in need of some TLC and I really ought to take care of it before it gets out of hand.  _

 

_ Enjoy your day off!  _

_ Vera xo  _

 

Well, this is certainly  _ not  _ the way that Joan had hoped to spend their mutual morning off. Irritated, she makes quick work of her morning routine and makes her way downstairs to brew coffee and check the day’s headlines. She tries her very best to fall back into her normal routine but it proves to be an impossible task. 

 

Vera is everywhere. 

 

Her laughter is bouncing around the sterile fixtures of her kitchen. Her hands are working over the wooden cutting board on Joan’s breakfast counter. Her delicate feet are dancing across the floor. Her humming is filling the space between them. 

 

Joan’s hands tremble as she reaches for her mug. She can still feel the kisses that Vera had placed to every part of her burning her skin last night. She can still feel Vera’s silken inner walls contracting against her fingers. She can still taste Vera’s sweetness on her tongue. 

 

Vera is an enigma. Her insatiable need for Vera is a mystery that runs far deeper than the greater good itself. Vera very well might be the best thing to have happened to her. And it is with that thought that Joan brings her coffee mug upstairs into the spare-room-turned office. She sets the mug down on the coaster that is at the top right of her desk before she sits down to asses the prisoner files all neatly and alphabetically sorted in the middle of the polished wood. 

 

She spends hours pouring over them. Memorizing every detail of their sentence, their crimes, but most of all, their faces. She studies in particular the bottom half of each woman’s face, tries to catalogue the acne, wrinkles, and scars that make up each one and compares it to one in particular that has haunted her for weeks. The one in particular who had been allowed to freely walk down the same corridors and breathe the same air as her deputy while she had been rendered incapacitated, a prisoner in her own home. 

 

_ “Fuck off Ferguson! Vinegar Tits and I are going to go for a ride and you’re not invited.” _

 

Joan recalls with chilling clarity, the way that the prisoner had lifted the bottom of her mask and trailed her fat, greasy tongue up Vera’s neck. How she had kept her eyes on Joan as her tongue marked her Vera just parallel to the place where her Vera had been maimed but the knife. She recalls how Vera had gone limp with terror in her captor’s arms. How her eyes had gone dead, how the colour had drained from her beautiful face. How moments before, she had been screaming for Joan, not her Governor, but  _ Joan _ , the woman who had sworn to protect her, the woman who had broken her heart. 

 

The woman who had declared Vera  _ hers _ , and yet also the woman who had abandoned her. Dismissed her. 

 

Nearly losing Vera had been unacceptable. Nearly failing to protect Vera when she’d promised  _ explicitly  _ to always do so had been unacceptable, and Joan will never allow it to happen again. 

 

Joan grinds her jaw and she opens the next file, her combined shame and anger rise inside her gut, but they meet a hard stop when her eyes catalogue the lower half of this prisoner’s face. This prisoner, who is smiling arrogantly even in her mugshot, has the tip of her tongue visible between her teeth. 

  
Joan’s fingers trace the name on the file.  _ Lucy Gambaro.  _

 


	21. Memory

“Joan!” Vera exclaims happily as she opens her front door. She looks down at her own worn white t-shirt and joggers and rubber-glove clad hands and blushes fiercely. “Sorry, I’m just in the middle of cleaning up,” she apologizes. Joan of course is dressed in perfectly pressed dark grey trousers and a crisp navy blue blouse. Not one hair is out of place, even as it flows freely over her broad shoulders. 

 

Joan ignores the apology and instead reaches out to tuck a sweaty lock of hair behind Vera’s burning ear. “I know that you’re busy, I’ve just brought you some food,” she says fondly as she lifts the other hand to indicate the bagged containers. 

 

Vera smiles reminiscently at Joan, recalling the first time that those words had been spoken to her in this doorway. She’s come a long way since then. They both have. 

 

“Come in,” she says. 

 

Joan insists on doing the meal preparation herself, and Vera knows better than to fight with her about it. Instead, after she quickly showers and puts on freshly laundered lounge pants and a tank, she leans over the countertop in her kitchen and marvels at Joan’s efficiency as she slices various vegetables with a speed and accuracy that would rival professional chefs. 

 

“You’re good with that,” Vera compliments after a few minutes of comfortable silence. 

 

Joan offers her a smile but does not lift her head. Instead, she takes a freshly washed tomato and begins to cut into its juicy skin. She slides the blade through its skin, then arranges it with her long fingers until it resembles a blooming rose. She hands it to Vera wordlessly. 

 

“Beautiful,” Vera says softly, “I feel bad for wanting to devour it,” she confesses. 

 

“Did you not eat today?” Joan asks as she returns to the remainder of their salad. 

 

“I didn’t,” Vera confesses, “I meant to make dinner as soon as I got in but everything was such a mess and I got a bit lost in a cleaning frenzy.” 

 

Joan nods her head towards the creation in Vera’s hands. “Eat,” she commands, and Vera silently obeys. 

 

“Seriously, where did you learn that?” Vera wonders aloud. 

 

Joan pauses to look up at her deputy, who looks perfectly relaxed in her loungewear and scrubbed clean of all dirt and debris. Her hair hangs in wet, soft curls over her shoulders and the smile on her lips seems to infuse every part of her beautiful face. 

 

“My mother was a chef,” Joan shares, “she owned a restaurant in Korsakov.” She holds Vera’s surprised gaze for a moment before bending her head once more to return to the task at hand. 

 

“Oh,” Vera says, “Umm,” she wills her fluttering heart to calm and she reminds herself to take baby-steps, “Did you spend much time with her in her kitchen?” she asks. 

 

Joan is still a great mystery to her. She had been very nearly living with Joan for the last few weeks and yet, she knows as little about Joan’s life now as she did on the day that she had met her. She has no idea what Joan’s family looks like, or if they are still alive, or if Joan keeps  in contact with any of them. Joan keeps her home bare of any photographs, save for one on her dining room credenza that depicts a teenager version of herself posing with whom Vera assumes to be her fencing mentor. When Vera had been caring for Joan, she’d spent ages silently gazing at the photo every night before she left Joan’s house in the hope that it might give her a clue about the woman who had so completely seized her heart. 

 

Joan’s head is still bent over her work. She cannot quite meet Vera’s eyes. “When I was a child I did,” she says after a few moments. “She...she died when I was very young.” She feels discomfort swirling in her gut and tension building in her limbs; her body is preparing for attack. 

 

Instead, what she feels is Vera’s gentle hand on her forearm, her thumb tracing delicate patterns against the skin. She looks up and sees Vera’s eyes shining with love and gratitude. 

 

“Thank you for sharing that with me. I know that it mustn’t have been easy,” she says softly. 

 

Joan places her knife down very carefully and reaches for Vera’s hand. “It isn’t,” she breathes. She feels a lump forming and rising in her throat and she grinds her jaw, forcing it to subside. Vera catches this and quickly makes her way around the counter between them. Her hands are on either side of Joan’s face and her lips find their home against Joan’s chin. 

 

Later, Vera exudes the same tenderness and affection as she had in her kitchen when leading Joan upstairs to her bed. And as they come down from the high of their frantic lovemaking, it is Joan who cups Vera’s face in her hands. It is Joan who gently kisses away the tears clinging to Vera’s eyelashes. 

 

Vera is breathless and sweaty; her cheeks are a dark pink and tears paint the delicate crinkles next to her eyes. Joan is meticulous in the placement of gentle kisses all along the vulnerable skin, she holds Vera like she is a doll made of precious china, susceptible to damage at any moment. Yet the more gentle she is, the harder Vera begins to cry and Joan is at a loss as to why. Surely Vera was not upset at how things had been progressing between them as of lately? Joan wracks her brain to try and make sense of why her delicate lover would be so anguished, but cannot discern the reason. 

 

“Because I feel so much when we’re together like this, and sometimes it all sort of comes out,” Vera explains. 

 

Joan blushes; she hadn’t realized that she’d voiced her confusion out loud. 

 

A deceptively strong forearm rests against Joan’s middle and Vera lays her crown of curls against Joan’s breast. “You haven’t hurt me,” she soothes, “sometimes people cry when they’re happy too.” 

 

Joan nuzzles the unruly kinks of Vera’s hair and inhales deeply. She does not understand the nuance of this human experience. She does not understand happiness; she cannot even recall the last time that she felt it. 

 

She does not classify what she has with Vera as happiness. When Vera is in her arms, she feels an overwhelming sense of  _ right _ . This is right. Vera is hers, this is  _ right _ . It makes logical sense when Joan looks at Vera in terms of right and wrong; Vera is not wrong, she could  _ never _ be wrong. There is something deeper that stirs within her whenever she is with Vera, but she cannot classify it. She cannot name it. She certainly cannot call such a complex and unknown presence happiness; she is uneasy about trying to classify it. 

 

Joan understands pain, she understands it better than anyone else. And she understands loss, she understands the agony of having someone ripped so violently from her life. She understands fragility as well, she understands the vulnerability of the human body and mind, and how exactly to manipulate them.

 

Joan does not understand the sort of happiness that brings one to tears. She does not understand how someone in the throes of passion and joy could crumble just as someone in the throes of agony. It defies all logic. It is messy and unhinged, and she far prefers categorizing human experiences in terms of right and wrong. The greater good always did make for an excellent guide to understanding the world around her. 

 

“My father used to tell me that love and agony were inseparable, like soulmates. Never one without the other,” Vera says. 

 

Joan scoffs. “That is irrational,” she argues.

 

“It is,” Vera agrees, “but being irrational is very human,” she points out. “Being flawed is very human as well,” she says. She looks up at Joan and shrugs, “Dad left when I was just starting high school. I haven’t seen him since, I...I don’t even know if he’s still alive. It’s ironic I suppose, that the first person to teach me anything about love should also be the first person to break my heart,” she confesses sadly. 

 

Joan instantly despises the man, she loathes him more than she had loathed Vera’s mother. She wraps her arms around Vera tighter and silently wishes that she could reach inside her lover’s chest and brush away the pain clinging to her heart. 

 

Joan recalls how her own father had flown into a dark, neverending fit of rage when her mother died. She recalls how she had been forbidden to ever speak her name again, how he had ripped up every last photo of her. How bright the flames had been that night that he burnt her restaurant, her life’s work, to the ground. How he had moved them to Australia just weeks after her mother’s funeral, how his heart had retained the cold of her beloved home, even in the heated climate of their new home. She has not seen Korsakov since. She has not seen an image of her mother since. She can hardly remember what her mother looked like, what she sounded like, what she felt like. The memory of her mother is as ashen as the remnants of her tiny restaurant, now mere rubble in the heart of her childhood home. 

 

“Simply accepting one's flaws,  _ parading _ them, it...it is a weakness,” Joan says, then frowns recognizing that Vera might take offence. Sighing she clarifies, “Vera, I just meant tha-”

 

“I know what you meant.” Vera rests her hand over Joan’s heart. She can feel the resilient muscle beating a steady rhythm against the sturdy chest beneath her palm. “This scares you,” she observes, “You don’t scare easily but this has gotten under your skin,” she observes. 

 

Vera props herself up on a bent arm and looks down at Joan. Her toes hang slightly off of the mattress and she is is holding her thighs together in an effort to not fall off the edge. She is too large for this bed, too grande; she looks like a goddess among mortals.

 

Joan exhales a shaky breath. She can feel the strokes of Vera’s fingertips becoming firmer against her chest. Once again, the overwhelming feeling of this being so very  _ right _ infuses every part of her. 

 

Vera smiles at her and bends her head to deposit a single kiss against Joan’s sweaty brow. “Okay, consider this, when we uh, are intimate,” her ears turn pink at the mention of their favourite activity as of lately, “when I make love to you and you climax, does it feel good?” 

 

If talking about happiness had been difficult, then this is the Mount Everest of conversations. She is unnerved by Vera’s boldness yet also proud to see her little mouse grow; still, this is yet another first for her. Another terrifying, vastly unknown first. “Yes, obviously,” Joan says curtly, “I...have I not made that clear?” Joan asks, suddenly quite embarrassed and worried. 

 

“Of course,” Vera soothes, “I just wanted to make sure.” Vera sinks back down onto the mattress and rests on top of Joan. Her lips find that perfect spot behind Joan’s ear and her tongue flicks out to greet it. “It feels nice, doesn’t it? Me touching you, kissing you, licking you. It feels so good but it’s also agonizing. You feel like you might explode at any moment and when you do, it’s almost a relief isn’t it?” she whispers against the strained muscles in Joan’s neck. 

 

“Yes,” Joan whispers. Vera’s lips latch onto her neck and begin to suck, she feels the scrape of Vera’s sharp teeth and the heat of her wet tongue. “Vera,” she groans. 

 

Vera sinks her teeth into the side of Joan’s neck and holds until Joan is squirming beneath her. She pulls back and drags her lips across Joan’s jaw to meet her eager lips and tongue. 

 

“Love is the same Joan. I love you so much that it feels like my heart could burst out of my chest with the force of it. It’s agonizing, loving you, but it’s the sweetest agony I’ve ever known and even when I am exhausted by it, even when I think that I’ve had my fill, I want more.” 

 

Joan gasps into Vera’s mouth as Vera’s fingers lower to tease and pluck her nipple. “Vera,” she grunts, “M-more. Harder,” she orders. Yet Vera’s fingers remain languorous in their manipulation of Joan’s tender flesh. 

 

“I will,” Vera pants, “but this time I want to take you slowly. Will you let me do that Joan?” Vera breathes the words into Joan’s mouth and inhales Joan’s frustrated cry. 

 

Joan’s teeth sink into Vera’s lower lip, pulling the delicate flesh hard before letting it go so that her tongue can soothe the damaged skin. “Yes!” she hisses, “Vera, please..I want you!” 

 

“You have me,” Vera whispers sweetly. Her fingers stray lower still until they find Joan’s wet, pulsing clit and begin to rub little circles against the straining flesh. “Oh Joan, you'll always have me,” she promises. 

 

Joan’s neck stretches and her lips part. Her nostrils flare and a deepening flush spreads across her porcelain skin. She rolls her hips against Vera’s knowing manipulation of her flesh and her own hands begin to wander across Vera’s muscled back. For several blissful minutes the air around them is filled with their combined panting, the ridiculous squeaking of Vera’s bed, the grunts and groans from Joan’s throat as Vera’s fingers increase their speed and pressure, the sound of Vera’s wet kisses against Joan’s neck and collar, the even wetter sound of Vera’s fingers sliding across Joan’s hard clit. 

 

Joan’s back begins to arch sharply and sweat begins to form on her brow and upper lip, signaling to Vera that she’s wonderfully close. 

 

“That’s it,” Vera whispers, “let go my love. Just let go, I’ve got you.” 

 

Joan digs her blunt nails into Vera’s lower back and looks down at the scene between her legs. Vera’s forearm and bicep are glowing in the dim light, the dewy sweat highlighting the well defined muscles as Vera’s gentle hands work her over. Joan is struck but how beautiful they look together with their bodies, otherwise studies in complete opposition, merging just so to create blissful perfection. 

 

“Let it all out,” Vera encourages. 

 

Pleasure shoots across Joan’s every limb, breaking every bone, tearing every muscle, boiling the blood in every vein. Her back snaps back and her toes curl, her lungs expand and her heart pounds against her chest. Joan can feel Vera’s unrelenting fingers slow against her flesh as she falls from her great height. 

 

Vera is beside her again, her lips trailing up to the corners of her eyes. Joan blinks. Her eyelashes are wet, as are her cheekbones. Her lips tremble and Vera captures them with a kiss so tender that it makes her ears tingle. Joan rolls them over so that she is on top of Vera, so that her body and this bloody  _ awful _ old mattress shield her from the rest of the world. 

 

Her lips meet the scar on Vera’s throat and she feels tears spill forth again. Her lips cover every bit of the scar and press upon it unparalleled tenderness in the vain hope that it might be able erase, from Vera’s precious life, the trauma that it symbolizes. 

 

“I understand now,” she breathes against the marking on Vera’s perfect skin. 

 

Vera’s hands cup her face and draw her back up; she cannot stop smiling as she seeks Joan’s lips again and again. Eventually, Vera wraps her arms around Joan’s shoulders and her legs around her hips and just simply holds the older woman to her. 

 

Joan slips her hands underneath Vera’s lower back and sits up, encouraging Vera to follow her ascension. “Vera, I do...I do care about you,” she lets out a shaky breath, “but I cannot stay on this mattress one minute longer. It is beyond me how you have survived all of these years without obtaining severe back injuries,” she huffs, “get dressed and pack some clothing to bring home with me.” 

 

Vera tucks her head into the nook of Joan’s neck and giggles a soft, “Yes, Joan,” before rising and complying with her lover’s affectionate orders. 

 


	22. Promises

One of Vera’s muscular arms is draped across Joan’s middle, her face rests on the pillow next to Joan but it is angled so that her full lips are touching Joan’s bare shoulder. Her hair is wild and fans out across both pillows. 

 

Next to her, Joan lays wide awake, silently watching over Vera as she sleeps. She feels an ache deep in her chest as she considers how the younger woman had been so unrelenting in her passion this evening, and patient as ever, when Joan’s inept articulation had asserted itself between them once again. 

 

Joan knows that she doesn’t deserve Vera. She...she loves her anyway. 

 

Love is illogical, surely. It is destructive and foolish, but the few weeks of life that she had lived without Vera had been intolerable, as had the sobering threat of nearly losing Vera entirely. 

 

Vera had shown her that this is so much  _ more _ than just right, this is everything to her now. She would do anything to protect Vera, to keep her safe from harm and from life’s unending propensity for cruelty. 

 

“I would do anything to protect you,” she kisses the words against Vera’s brow, mirroring the words that she had spoken to her so many months ago, back when they were drastically different women, just barely able to comprehend the force of the magnetic pull between them. Back when Joan had thought that her true purpose in life was to serve the greater good and its will; but she knows better now. Before Vera, Joan had believed there to be no purer force worthy of her. How wrong she had been. 

 

“Vera, I will keep you safe, always. I swear it,” she murmurs against her lover’s skin. 

 

It is a promise that Joan intends to keep. 

 

xxx 

 

Joan had always found a certain sense of peace when working the nightshift. There was something about the darkness that felt far more natural to Joan than the light. In the light, Joan stood out for all the wrong reasons; she’d always been too large, too strict, too severe, too broad, too harsh, and the daylight only ever served to highlight all the ways in which she was just too much. The darkness was a far more forgiving friend, it always welcomed her, and protected her from the scrutiny of the world. 

 

Joan moves like liquid smoke in the shadows, her heels collide harshly with the cement floor but the darkness swallows the sound. Her heart pounds restlessly against her ribcage but her breaths are slow and measured. There is a certain thrill in being a creature of the darkness. A certain power. 

 

The door to the isolated unit opens with a practiced turn of her leather-clad wrist. Inside lies a sleeping beast capable of unending destruction. Joan stands at the edge of the bed and observes her adversary for several long minutes; even in her sleep, this vile miscreant wears an arrogant smirk on her lopsided mouth. Joan grins and her teeth glint in the dim lighting; not for long, and after tonight, most certainly not ever again. 

 

Joan is swift with her next action, thankfully the prisoner sleeps on her stomach with her arms dangling on either side of her, so grasping her fat wrists in the cool metal cuffs is not difficult. It isn’t until Joan reaches for the second wrist that the prisoner stirs, slurring and hissing incoherent vitriol into her pillow. Joan’s knee in the middle of the prisoner’s back keeps her from turning around and allows Joan to secure the prisoner’s second wrist with minimal struggling. 

 

“Wha- fuck off! Ugh, bloody ‘screw! The fuck you think you’re doing ‘eh?” 

 

Joan grabs a fistfull of the prisoner’s hair; the temptation to use this hold to smash their head into the wall, repeatedly, is incredibly alluring but Joan resists. She has only a select window of time to carry out her plan and she will not allow any distractions to interfere with it. From her belt, Joan procures a gorgeous, custom made switch blade and easily coaxes it from the handle. This had been her mother’s blade, and before that, her mother’s. It was the only thing that remained of the long-departed woman and it would die with Joan, having no other woman to claim ownership of it. 

 

The cool, polished metal catches the fading perimeter light from the window and reflects it onto the prisoner’s pained face. 

 

“What the fuck is this Ferguson?” 

 

Joan uses her hold on the prisoner’s head to yank them upwards, causing them to shriek in agony. She forces the prisoner to sit on the edge of the bed and she holds the blade up against their fat and heavily veined neck. Her nose twitches at the unpleasant smell of the prisoner; clearly they had been refusing her daily shower allowances. 

 

“If you scream again, if you make  _ any _ sound that is not requested of you, I promise that you will regret it immensely,” Joan says calmly. “Now, Gambaro, we have kept you here for some time now in the hopes that you might realize just how foolish your choice to partake in Smith’s pathetic little riot was. Have you come to see the error of your ways, hmm?” Joan smirks at the prisoner’s conflicted silence. “You may speak... _ now _ ,” she taunts. 

 

Unhinged fear crosses Gambaro’s face as her eyes shift from the Governor’s leather clad wrist to her dark, hard eyes. “Y-yeah. I have,” she stutters, “fuck Smith. Fuck that dog a-and her crew!” Gambaro adds, her fear mounting. 

 

“Good. Well, I think that if you have learned your lesson, then there is clearly no need for you to remain all alone any longer, do you? That also requires a verbal response.” 

 

“N-nah, I’m good. I won’t do nothing else. I bloody swear it!” 

 

Joan’s nostrils flare and her eyebrow arches. Her lips curl into a triumphant smirk. “Well then, do allow me to escort you back to your unit!” she says, clapping the non-knife wielding hand against her thigh in a show of enthusiasm. “I am sure that your cellmates are just dying to welcome you back.” She offers Gambaro a smile, but it is as cold and harsh as her gaze. 

 

A muffled squeak escapes Gambaro’s lips and Joan presses the blade a little closer to her sweating neck. “Did you say something?” she asks softly. 

 

Gamabro’s eyes widen and she frantically shakes her head. 

 

“No,” Joan chuckles, “I thought not. You’ve learned from your mistakes, yes?” 

 

Gambaro shakes her head in the opposite direction, eyes pleading with her Governor. 

 

Joan’s hand releases its hold on Gambaro’s hair and comes around to grasp her chin. “I’m so very glad to hear. I shall escort you back now.” 

 

Slowly, Joan lowers her knife, collapses the blade back into its handle, and places it back in her pocket. Her thumb traces the quivering chin in her grasp and she feels a heavy, heady power settle over her shoulders. 

 

The night is young, and Joan has a promise to keep.   
  
  


 


	23. Devotion

The first thing that Joan registers when she steps into her home is Vera’s melodic humming over the sound of running water. Joan closes her eyes for a moment and allows the sounds to wash over her; she breathes in contentment and she breathes out a renewed sense of purpose. Her mission was complete, the threat to Vera had been eliminated, all that remained to ensure Vera’s happiness was a declaration of Joan’s devotion to her, and Joan was ready now to make that declaration. 

 

Upstairs, Vera has opened the window in the bedroom, allowing the morning star’s rays to illuminate the crisp sheets of the freshly made bed and the recently ironed uniform resting overtop it. Joan takes great care as she silently sheds each article of clothing, she feels the night’s events being peeled off of her skin along with the dense fabric. Her hair is the last part of her that she frees; she runs her fingers through it and sighs as her scalp throbs in gratitude. With infinite care, she crosses the threshold to her shower and wraps her arms around Vera, who squeaks and jumps in surprise. 

 

“Shit, you frightened me,” Vera laughs breathily. Her hands quickly overlap over Joan’s forearms and she twists her head to nuzzle Joan’s shoulder affectionately. “How was your night shift?” Joan can feel love infuse every word, every movement of Vera’s lips against her and for the first time, she finally feels worthy of such an offering. 

 

Joan sinks her teeth into Vera’s exposed neck, then drags her tongue along its slick muscles. “Hands on the wall. Now,” she orders. She grasps Vera’s hips and pushes the smaller woman towards the tiled wall of her enclosed shower stall. 

 

_ Fuck _ , Joan is in one of  _ those  _ moods this morning. Vera feels a delightful shiver trickle down her spine. 

 

“Joan,” Vera warns, “I have to be at work soon.” It’s a half-hearted attempt at warning Joan away from fucking her within an inch of her life. 

 

“I’ve amended the rotation and you will commence three hours later at Ms. Miles’ request. She’s in need of the overtime, no doubt to fuel her filthy gambling addiction, and right now I am in need of your compliance. I will say it only once more; hands on the wall.  _ Now _ ,” Joan says and the authority in her voice makes Vera’s thighs clench and her knees wobble. 

 

Vera obliges her lover and stands with her hands planted firmly against the wet tile, she takes care to spread her legs a little as she repositions herself; she shoots a challenging look over her shoulder at Joan, who is breathing heavily through flared nostrils. 

 

Joan’s hands cups Vera’s breasts and her fingers immediately locate her lover’s errect nipples, pulling and pinching the tender flesh in her capable digits. Her mouth lowers to Vera’s neck again. “Say it,” she says, her voice hoarse with lust, “say that you’re mine.” 

 

Vera twists her neck again to nip at Joan’s bottom lip. “I’m yours Joan, but you know that.” A daring hand leaves its spot on the wall to reach for one of Joan’s, regretfully she pulls it off of her rigid nipple, and guides it to rest overtop her mons. Her clit is already pulsing from the delicious tugging of her tits and her cunt is aching to be filled by Joan’s long, thick fingers. “So do your job, and take care of me,” she whispers her challenge directly into Joan’s mouth and swallows Joan’s responding growl. Her hand is forcefully placed back on the tile and she feels Joan’s teeth sink into the junction of her shoulder and neck so hard that they both know it will leave a mark. A thrill dances down Vera’s body to assert itself in her cunt at the thought. 

 

Joan’s hand cups Vera’s sex and she shudders as she feels the discernable wetness in her palm. Her tongue and teeth begrudgingly leave their place to reacquaint themselves with Vera’s shoulder blades and spine. She drags her tongue along each pronounced vertebrae and feels the responding wetness fill her palm, feels the frustrated wiggle of Vera’s narrow hips. 

 

“Fuck me,” Vera hisses as she presses her forehead to the wall and pushes her ass back against Joan’s upper thighs. 

 

“Patience,” Joan warns as she begins to nip the solid muscle of Vera’s back. At the same time, she pulls Vera’s nipple almost to the point of pain. “You’re aching aren’t you my dear? Well don’t worry, I will take care of you. I will always take care of you.” 

 

Vera arches her back in response as pleasure scorches her every limb. “Yes, Joan,  _ fuuuck _ ,” she whimpers as Joan’s fingers begin to pinch and roll the stretched flesh in their grasp. 

 

Joan releases Vera’s nipple and grins against Vera’s back as the smaller woman cries out in frustration. Her palm moulds itself more firmly to Vera’s twitching cunt. “Do you want me inside of you, hmm?” she asks softly. 

 

“Yessss. I want you to fuck me, fuck me with your fingers!” Vera shouts. 

 

“Yes,” Joan sighs, “I will Vera. I’ll fuck you until you’re screaming for me. Do you want that? Do you need it?” 

 

Vera nods her head and moans. “I need it Joan, I need you so badly.” 

 

“Of course you do. I will give you want you want Vera, what you need. Do you trust me to do that?” Joan breathes.

 

Vera groans, “Yes! Yes Joan.” 

 

Joan’s hand opens up and her fingers gently, slowly part Vera’s heated flesh and she exhales a shaky breath as her fingers discover just how wet her younger lover is for her. She circles Vera’s protruding clit with the tip of her finger and has to bring an arm across Vera’s middle to hold the younger woman upright as her legs wobble dangerously at the contact. Every inch of Vera is like liquid silk; hot, slippery, and pulsing against Joan’s hand. 

 

“Oh Joan please,” Vera sobs, “please fuck me. I need you inside of me.” Her hands are scratching at the tile beneath them, her head is pressing so hard against it that she is sure to have angry red lines from the divisions in the tile on her skin. 

 

Joan easily slips three of her fingers inside of Vera and tightens her hold around Vera’s torso as her beautiful deputy’s entire body shudders delightfully at the penetration. Vera draws her head back from the wall only to bang it against the wet surface again, mouth hanging open and eyes rolled back. Incoherent mutterings spill from her full lips as Joan pumps her fingers in and out. Joan delights in the way that Vera’s inner walls cling so desperately to her, as if they would swallow her whole if they could. Joan feels a tug deep within her own flesh at the sound and feel of her lover so wantonly taking her pleasure. 

 

Yet despite the raging fire coiling deep in her abdomen, Joan feels a sense of calm wash over her as she works Vera over. This is as it should be, Vera in her arms, Vera crying out her love and desire for her, Vera safe from harm, Vera receiving all that Joan has to give to her. 

 

Joan feels a lump rising in her throat and she gasps for air against Vera’s shoulders; she loves Vera, she loves her so much that she feels that she might just perish from the force of it. She never wants to leave this space, the sanctuary made up of Vera’s moans, her soft, slippery skin, the sounds of their coupling, the scent of their combined arousal. Her thumb slides over Vera’s clit and Joan’s cunt contracts at the resounding shrieks that reverberate off of the walls around them. She can tell that Vera is close, she can feel it in the way that Vera’s cunt pulls her in deeper with each thrust, in the way that Vera’s clit swells and hardens and twitches against her. 

 

Joan feels the beginnings of Vera’s orgasm tickling the tips of her fingers and she curls them further inside of Vera. Her lover’s head snaps back, her back arches to the point that Joan can hear a faint pop, her cunt spasms almost painfully around Joan’s fingers and her legs give out entirely. Joan presses Vera’s upper body flush against the tile and holds her there as her fingers continue to coax every last drop of pleasure from Vera’s taut body. When the last tremor subsides, Vera’s goes slack in Joan’s arms and her head falls forward heavily. Joan wraps both arms around Vera and holds the smaller woman upright, depositing hot kisses all along her neck and collar. Her lips take extra care to cover the scar that maims her perfect skin and she feels the lump in her throat rise further until her face is burning, her eyes are prickling and her lips are quivering. 

 

“Vera,” Joan whispers against the skin. Her lover grunts happily and her soft blue eyes flutter. “I love you.” Joan bends her head and nuzzles Vera’s neck, saying a silent prayer of thanks against the steady pulse beneath her lips. “M-my heart feels like it might break every time I touch you. But I don’t ever want to let go,” she confesses. “Please...please don’t ask me to let go,” she pleads softly. She feels Vera’s shaky hands pawing at Joan’s forearms, she feels Vera’s hips twisting desperately in an attempt to turn around in Joan’s arms. 

 

Vera pushes back against Joan to free herself from Joan’s grasp and spins around. Her hands cup a clenching jaw and her trembling lips press against Joan’s handsome chin. “Yeah?” she asks breathily, there is such hope, such  _ joy _ in her voice that it makes Joan’s heart clench. 

 

“Yes.” 

 

Vera’s laughter fills the space between them. “I would never ask…,” she shakes her head and she cries happily, “I want you. Always,” she says. 

 

“And I...I want you to stay here. A-as in, I would like for us to enter into a permanent arrangement of erm, cohabitation,” Joan struggles. 

 

Vera cries even harder and Joan finally understands why. She feels Vera’s lips touch her skin and she too finally knows a kind of happiness so great, so vast, that it tears her heart into a million pieces with its force. 

 

Vera’s mouth is frantic as it moves across Joan’s chin, neck, collar, shoulders, breasts; her lips pucker against every inch of beloved skin that she intercepts. “Yes, I’ll move in with you, yes, yes, yes!” she giggles against her lover. “This is the best day, well, ever,” she says and she looks up at Joan, eyes shining with devotion and happiness. 

 

Joan feels something click into place in her chest and she finds herself being filled with an overwhelming sense of peace as she touches her lips to Vera’s. Vera is hers. Vera is safe. Vera is loved. She would never have to be without her Vera again. 

 

Vera reaches back and jerks the water tap off, leaving them shivering and slightly pruney. “Bed, now. I fully intend on making the best of our time together before my shift starts,” Vera whispers. 

 

Joan is helpless to the lure of her heart leading them to their haven. 

 


	24. Safe

Vera cannot stop kissing her.

 

They’ve exhausted themselves after thoroughly and _deliciously_ meeting their respective capacities for daily orgasms and are laying, limbs tangled, back on the bed. _Their_ bed.

 

Yet Vera’s lips have a life of their own, despite her body’s exhaustion. They continue to seek out the delicate lines at the corners of Joan’s eyes, the tip of her aristocratic nose, the curve of her full upper lip; she is insatiable in her love and Joan greedily basks in it.

 

“I’ll iron your uniform for you,” Joan offers as an apology for flinging the now crumpled clothing from the bed and onto the floor in favour of lowering Vera’s glowing body down onto the surface.

 

“Thank you. I’ll need to do _something_ to my hair,” Vera says with light admonishment. She hadn’t managed to condition her hair prior to Joan’s unexpected, but completely welcome, ambush in the shower. It now lay in hopeless, frizzy clumps all around her head. “I wish I had yours,” she says wistfully as her hand runs through the perfectly smooth waves of Joan’s hair.

 

“Nonsense,” Joan scoffs, “Yours is perfect. You are perfect.” She says this with such conviction that Vera does not argue further. Instead, she seeks Joan’s lips for another kiss.

 

“Mmm, I suppose I’ll have to reach out to an agent tonight for the house,” she murmurs.

 

“I will take care of everything,” Joan cups Vera’s face and she leans in to kiss her again, “I do not want you to worry about a thing Vera. I will take care of you, I will hire whomever I need to in order for you to move here as expediently as possible. Consider it done.”

 

Vera arches a playful eyebrow. “Oh really? So you’re going to hire someone to go through my knickers drawer and pack them all up for me?” she asks sweetly.

 

Joan’s eyes darken and her cheeks redden. “Absolutely not. I will pack your _delicates_ myself. And anyway, many of them are already here,” she says knowingly.

 

Vera chuckles. “I’m teasing you.” She lets out an airy sigh. “Are we really doing this Joan?” she asks in amazement.

 

“I meant what I said Vera. I...I know that things have not always been ideal. I know that I have...disappointed you in the past, but that’s behind us now. This is the next logical step after all,” Joan reasons.

 

“What changed your mind?” Vera asks softly. “You’re different today...I can’t place it, but you’re not afraid anymore are you?”

 

“You are safe now, I’ve ensured that,” Joan says, with such overwhelming conviction in her voice.

 

Vera frowns. “Of course I’m safe.” Her thumb tickles Joan’s strong jawline. “What do you mean Joan? I don’t understand.”

 

“It doesn’t matter,” Joan says, shaking her head, “what matters is that you are happy. And you are, yes?” Her question carries with it the tiniest amount of doubt.

 

“Of course.”

 

Joan nods. “Good. Then it is my duty to maintain that,” she reasons.

 

“Only you could use such clinical language to describe something so lovely, and still make it sound wonderful,” Vera laughs. “I love that about you, so don’t feel embarrassed by it,” she adds. “Ugh, I really do have to get up now,” Vera pouts.

 

Joan pulls Vera to her for one last, lingering kiss before allowing her to exit the bed. She reaches for her black silk robe and shrugs it overtop shoulders which are covered in fresh bite marks from her feisty lover. They burn as the soft texture glides over them, but the pain only makes Joan’s smile widen as she reaches for the hideously crumpled skirt and shirt on the floor.

 

XXX

 

“Good morning!” Vera says brightly as she closes her locker.

 

Will greets her with a grim look and a hardened look in his eyes. “You just got here, yeah?” he asks, to which Vera hums affirmatively. “Then Miles hasn’t had the chance to call you yet. You haven’t heard yet, have you?” he asks solemnly.

 

Vera frowns. “Will I’ve literally just gotten in. What haven’t I heard?” She searches Will’s eyes, discerns the ashen tone in his normally olive skin, the slumped posture of his normally proud, wide shoulders. “Will?” she prompts, “What’s happened?”

 

Will lets out a shuddering sigh. “We’ve had a death Vera. Miles just found the body a few minutes ago during the count.”

 

Vera feels the colour drain from her face. The euphoric, bright light in her chest extinguishes leaving only deep remorse and guilt behind; another woman had died in their custody. “What? Why was I not called immediately? Who is it?”

 

Will holds his hands up defensively. “Vera look it literally just happened. The count was less than ten minutes ago. The deceased is Lucy Gamabro. Nurse Atkins is, uh, assessing the cause of death now. Her block are all undergoing thorough searches and drug testing as we speak. We’ll slot them all to contain the chaos until we figure out a plan.”

 

“What? Gamabro was in the slot. When did this change?” she asks.

 

“Governor Ferguson transferred her there last night on account of good behaviour,” Will explains. “Anyway, look Vera, the rest of the prison is on lockdown. I was just about to call you and the Governor. We need to move quickly on this.”

 

Vera frowns. Why had Joan transferred Gambaro? Why hadn’t she mentioned it to Vera? Why had this taken place during the night shift and not the day shift?

 

“I’m here now, let’s not bother Governor Ferguson with this until we have answers for her, yes?” Vera asks. “Take me to her, Gambaro that is.”

 

Will hesitates. “Look Vera it’s pretty gruesome,” he warns, “Miles lost her breakfast when she found her.” He holds his hands up and blocks Vera’s path.

 

“What?” Vera asks incredulously, “What are you talking about?” she snaps and pushes past him.

 

Her petite legs carry her fast to Gambaro’s domain, her heels clack loudly as she marches down the corridor, Will’s own heavy steps not far behind her. She rounds the corner to Gambaro’s empty block and she makes her way inside of the prisoner’s personal cell, upon catching a glimpse of the lifeless body on the floor, she stumbles and feels Will catch her from behind.

 

“Steady,” he says gently. His hands help plant Vera up against the doorway and he searches her face for any indication that she too might be sick.

 

Vera swallows hard. “I’m fine Will,” she says.

 

Will nods. “Alright,” he steps back from Vera and gestures towards the gate. “The lock was not tampered with, I think that this could have been an inside job.”

 

“Noted,” Vera remarks. Drawing a shaky breath she addresses Nurse Atkins who is furiously making notes on her clipboard. “What is the cause of death?” she asks briskly.

 

Nurse Atkins gives her the same grim look. “It’s not my place to make an official call on the cause of death. However, I can share my observations, the prisoner’s tongue was cut out of her mouth. She suffered severe blood loss due to the injury, she also obtained an injury in her neck. It looks like it was the same instrument used to cut her tongue out.” She pauses and shakes her head. “I-I’m sorry, this is just…I’ve never seen anything like this,” she admits quietly. “The prisoner was bound at the wrists and ankles, the cut in her neck looks like it was deliberately shallow enough to ensure that she would die slowly.”

 

“Do we know if anyone in her crew wanted to take it over? Anyone who wanted her out of their way?” Will asks.

 

Vera clenches her hips with her hands and paces in tight circles at the entrance to Gambaro’s cell. She purposefully averts her eyes away from the lifeless, blood soaked body on the floor. “Smith could have ordered this,” she reasons, “Gambaro has been known to be involved in drug trafficking in the past, it is very possible that Gambaro was doing so again, and therefore this was meant to teach the women a lesson. She could have easily ordered someone from Gambaro’s unit to do it.”

 

“Come on Vera, yeah I get that Bea’s got a strict anti-drug policy, but this...well fuck, this is way beyond something that she’d do,” Will argues.

 

“For Christ’s sake Will, she’s a murderer, she’s killed both in here and out there,” she says, jerking her hand. Vera’s eyes widen and she gasps. “We need to find the murder weapon. Whoever the hell did this is a danger to the rest of the women. Will, start with Smith’s block.”

 

Atkins stops scrawling her notes and regards Vera carefully. “Ms. Bennett, I for one am not disagreeing with you when you suggest that Smith might be involved,” she starts slowly, “however I do find this exceedingly violent, even when you consider Smith’s crimes. This was deliberate and cruel. And why cut out her tongue? Hmm? Why not stab her like she did Jacs? Or suffocate her? Why would Smith get her hands so dirty? Yes she hates drugs, but we have no proof that Gambaro was dealing. All of the random drug tests completed in recent weeks have come back clean.”

 

“What are you suggesting Nurse Atkins?” Vera asks.

 

“I am suggesting that we widen the search. Consider other motives. This was a very specific way to die,” she says sadly.

 

“Was Gambaro an informant?” Will asks. “The uh, tongue, could it be a symbol for lagging or something?”

 

“No, Vera frowns, “Gambaro was not working with the Governor or myself.”

 

“Well, this wasn’t just a simple shivving. This was an execution.”

 

Vera sighs. She cannot deny that Nurse Atkin’s observations are correct. Something about this was not adding up. Begrudgingly, Vera steps further into the cell and kneels down to get a better look at the deceased prisoner. Gabaro’s eyes are as wide open as her jaw; a permanent look of fear is etched into her unpleasant features. The entirety of her chin, jaw, and neck is covered in dried blood. Peeking inside of her open mouth, Vera discerns that whoever had done this had actually managed to cut out most of the organ, not simply just the front piece.

 

“It’s a clean cut,” Vera observes. She looks at Nurse Atkins. “We’re not looking for a homemade instrument are we? This was done with a proper blade.”

 

“Yes that was my initial observation as well. But we’ll have to wait for the coroner for an official diagnosis.”

 

Vera turns her attention back to the body. “This here, is that the other injury?”

 

“Yes, it runs parallel to the external jugular vein,” Atkins confirms.

 

Vera feels a rising panic grip her heart. She adjusts her own collar, tugging the crisp white material up to cover the scar on her own neck.

 

“Ms. Bennett?” Vera stands on shaky legs to find a very pale looking Mr. Bakula staring back at her, in his hands is a large, blood-coated plastic bag, the inside of which is…

 

“Is that…” Vera cannot finish her sentence. She feels bile rising in her throat.

 

He nods slowly.

 

“W-where did you find it?” Vera asks. Her heart is thudding heavily against her chest. She can feel sweat begin to soak her lower back and underarms; she doesn’t have to look in a mirror to know that her face is pale and her ears are red.

 

Mr. Bakula looks from Will to Vera before responding. “In Bea Smith’s cell.”

 

 


	25. Erosion

“Come in.” Governor Ferguson looks up from the stack of paperwork at her desk to see her deputy walk in and close the door to her office. “Ah, Vera.” She smiles up at Vera, but the gesture is not returned. 

 

“Governor,” Vera offers curtly. Dark circles rim her eyes and her normally glowing skin looks pale and sunken. “You wanted to see me?” she asks, but she does not meet Joan’s eyes. 

 

Joan frowns at the unusually aloof body language. She is greatly disturbed by the weariness weighing down Vera’s features but reminds herself that the day will soon come to an end. She will take Vera home and soothe the wrinkle out of her brow, she will melt the tension in Vera’s shoulders, and she will warm her worn lover with tender affection. “Yes, I understand that the coroner has taken away Prisoner Gambaro’s body?” 

 

“Yes Governor,” Vera responds. 

 

“I uh...understand that the cause of death,” Joan retrieves a report from the top of her desk, “was the oral injury that she sustained. She suffered a fatal amount of blood loss,” Joan says as she scans the scrawl on the coroner’s report. 

 

“Yes Governor,” Vera repeats. 

 

Joan looks up from the report and assesses Vera’s posture. There is a rigidity in her back and shoulders does not sit well with Joan. She places the report back onto the polished surface of her desk and drums her fingers impatiently on the smooth surface. “Vera what is the matter?” she asks. 

 

Vera opens her mouth to speak, but then pauses. Her cheeks redden and her eyes widen as she shakes her head. “I would rather not discuss it here,” she says finally. 

 

Joan feels a fluttering panic rise in her chest. “Is it,” she lowers her voice to a near-whisper, “Vera are you having second thoughts about our discussion this morning?” she asks. Joan replays the events of the last 14 hours over in her head again. Coming home, making love to Vera in the shower, against the bathroom countertop, in bed, helping Vera dress for her day, everything had gone according to plan. Everything had been  _ perfect _ ; Vera’s captor had been permanently eliminated and Vera had agreed to make a permanent commitment with her. 

 

Vera does not respond and Joan feels her chest tighten and her ears burn. Hadn’t everything been perfect? 

 

“Vera,” Joan averts her gaze from her deputy, “you are having regrets, aren’t you? About...about us. About m-.” 

 

“I’m going to ask you something Joan, and I want an honest answer from you,” Vera interrupts, voice trembling from the force of her rage. 

 

Joan’s head snaps up and she can see Vera leaning over her desk, small hands on either side of her, planted firmly on the dark wood. 

 

“Gambaro was released back into her unit yesterday evening, why?” 

 

Joan clears her throat and straightens her jacket. “I felt as though the prisoner was ready to be integrated back into her unit. Upon interviewing her, I deemed her ready to be allowed back into the general population. Unfortunately I underestimated Bea Smith’s propensity for revenge.” 

 

“Bullshit,” Vera whispers. “Gambaro’s tests came back clean. She wasn’t involved with drugs and we both know that the tongue was planted in Smith’s cell. And that’s why you completed the transfer in the middle of the night. I mean why not do it when more officers were on the schedule to oversee a smooth transition?” Vera snaps. 

 

Joan raises a perfectly shaped brow. “I do not need to explain my reasoning to you Vera,” she says, her voice is low and dangerous. 

 

“A prisoner is  _ dead _ Joan. You will answer to me because this affects me as well,” Vera hisses. 

 

“Remember who you are talking to,” Joan warns. 

 

Vera leans further into the space between them. “Did you do it?” 

 

Joan does not respond, but Vera can see a muscle twitching in Joan’s cheek; it’s subtle, but she picks up on the movement. Vera pushes herself off of the desk and rounds it, inserting herself between Joan and the edge of the wood. She reaches for Joan’s hand and places it overtop her own neck. Hot tears fall from her eyes and she bites down on the inside of her cheek to stop herself from sobbing out loud. She loves this woman. She loves her so much that she wishes in this moment that she could ignore this reality. 

 

“Gambaro is the one who stabbed me, isn’t she?” 

 

Joan grinds her jaw and her thumb moves gently along Vera’s scar. “Yes,” she whispers. 

 

“Y-you...you…” Vera cannot finish the thought. She recalls the searing pain of the blade as it had parted her skin, she recalls the sickening feeling that had overwhelmed her when the masked prisoner,  _ Gambaro _ , had pulled Vera flush to her and trailed her unwanted tongue up her neck. Vera’s chest tightens and she gasps; she can’t get enough breath to her lungs, her eyes widen in fear and her extremities start to tingle. 

 

Images of the riot flash before her, dizzying in their speed and strength. She can smell the faint metallic musk of Joan’s blood. She can feel the warm liquid on her hands. She can feel the weight of Joan going limp in her arms. 

 

“Vera,” Joan’s other hand guides Vera to sit back on her desk; she stands from her chair and her lips meet Vera’s forehead, “my darling girl, it’s alright. It’s alright,” she says. She places the hand at Vera’s neck overtop Vera’s chest and coaches Vera through her next dozen breaths. “That’s it Vera, just breathe with me,” she instructs. 

 

Vera opens her mouth to scream at Joan, to tell her a great many things. That she hates her. That  _ nothing  _ is alright. That she loves her. That she wishes that she’d never fallen in love with her. That she wishes she could have been allowed to take Gambaro’s life herself. That she wants to drag them both back in time to this morning, when she had known only the unending depth of the love between them. That she wants to live in that moment forever. 

 

What comes out is a strangled sob as she wraps her arms around her lover instead. “Oh Joan. What did you do? What did you do Joan?” she cries as she buries her face in the crook of Joan’s shoulder and neck. 

 

Joan inhales the scent of Vera’s perfume and sweat and exhales her love for Vera. “I did what I had to. What was necessary,” Joan whispers. 

 

“Why?” Vera sobs. Her tiny fists curl and she pummels them against Joan’s shoulders. “Why Joan? How could you?” 

 

Joan holds Vera tighter to her. She accepts each blow against her as her penance for her previous transgressions against her lover. 

 

“Because I love you,” Joan whispers, “And I would do anything to protect you Vera, anything. Everything that I have done has been for your benefit, for the purpose of keeping you safe,” Joan says, her throat tightening with emotion, “My conscience is clear Vera, because I did what was  _ right _ . In time you will understand, you will see that this was the only way.” 

 

Vera pushes herself away from Joan and regards her with tear-stained, crimson cheeks. “If loving me makes you…” Vera shakes her head and sobs. “I wish that you hadn’t done this, I can’t…” again, Vera trails off, unable to articulate the raging conflict that she feels in her heart. 

 

“Can’t what? Hmm?” Joan asks, she feels the recently assembled parts of her heart begin to crumble again. In the back of her mind, she hears her father’s taunting words. She hears Jianna screaming for her child. She hears Vera screaming for her. She hears the sickening sound of Vera’s body being slammed into the wall. 

 

Joan cups Vera’s face in her hands and her thumbs trace the gentle slope of Vera’s chin. “Vera,” she breathes, “What are you saying?” 

 

Vera leans in to Joan’s touch and silent tears run down her beautiful, tormented face. “I think...I think that I need to be alone tonight Joan. I just,” she brings her hands up to still Joan’s tender caresses, “it’s been a long shift and it’s hardly even finished yet. I think that I need to be alone tonight to process...everything.” 

  
Vera is silent as she removes Joan’s hands from her, rises from her seated position on Joan’s desk, and leaves Joan’s office. The sound of the door closing is deafening. Joan wipes her wet hands, stained by Vera’s salty tears, against her trouser legs until they are as red and raw as her heart. 

 

 


	26. Fall

The first shot of vodka hits her palate like a wildfire. The second is much smoother, it trickles down her throat slowly and the burn is much slower, sweeter.

 

Vera’s perfume still lingers in the air. Her coffee cup from this morning is sitting on Joan’s dishrack, it is the only item that is physically out of place in Joan’s otherwise immaculate and clutter-free kitchen. Joan doesn’t have the heart to move it from its spot. Moving it would somehow make Vera’s absence that much more pronounced.

 

The third shot makes her eyes burn. The fourth makes her lips numb. The fifth makes her hands tingle.

 

“Joan, what are you doing?” The gravelly, heavily accented voice of her father makes the hairs on the back of her neck stand at attention.

 

“I’m having a drink,” she deadpans.

 

His heavy paw lands on her shoulder and she clenches her jaw as the sixth shot sears a path down her throat.

 

“You have lost control,” he observes. His cruel laughter bounces around Joan’s sterile kitchen. “Oh Joan, what have you done? You’ve exposed yourself, haven’t you? You’ve shown your opponent your back, and allowed them a free pass at it,” he taunts.

 

“Vera is not my opponent,” she whispers. “She is…” Her lover? Her...partner? Joan does not know what to call Vera, words feel so insignificant when she considers all that Vera is to her.

 

“Everyone is our opponent Joan.”

 

She throws the seventh shot against the stainless steel of her fridge. The glass shatters into a dozen pieces and the liquid slides down the chrome surface. She wishes that she could throw herself against the surface and shatter, let the love and anguish in her heart ooze down the shiny surface and fall onto the floor. She wishes that she could alleviate the pressure that she feels in her chest. The chaos in her otherwise pristine environment feels good, it feels defiant and it makes Joan feel alive; like she is surfacing after an especially deep dive. Her fingers twitch with the urge to bring chaos down upon every shining surface, every perfectly organized facet of her life. She is brimming with the need to walk head-first into a turbulent storm.

 

“Look at you!” her father says in disgust. “You have destroyed yourself with this delusion of love,” he snarls, “when will you learn my child? Do not act on emotion, emotion leads to mistakes!” His hand collides with the countertop just next to the bottle of chilled vodka. Joan can hear the knuckles of his large hand crack, so hard is his strike. She recalls the time when she was eleven, when he’d hit her so hard that he’d broken a bone in his ring finger.

 

“Loving Vera is not a mistake because she loves me as well,” she hisses. The insubordination feels good.

 

“Your deputy does not love you Joan, not anymore. You disgust her,” he snarls, “you’re cruel and deceitful, you always have been. Even when you were a chil-”

 

“I am what you made me!” Joan shouts. She reaches for the bottle and hurls it at her fridge. The glass shatters and the sound is comforting to Joan, as is the sight of the disarray.

 

“You taught me to be cruel. Ruthless. You taught me to dominate, to conquer. Y-you, you never taught me how to be kind, how to live in this world with other people!” Joan shouts. “You taught me to take pride in solitude, but all I ever knew was loneliness!” Hot tears carve a path down her high cheekbones as her father eyes her silently. For so many years, she had clung onto his memory as a source of both comfort and guidance and yet now, she finds none of that in his hard, cold eyes. Now, she sees only cruelty and indifference; perhaps that is all there had ever really been.  

 

She looks around for something else to break, something else to disrupt, to destroy; she reaches for the glass decanter holding Vera’s preferred aged whisky and hurls it to the ground. A glass shard cuts the tip of her index finger and the rich amber liqueur stings the pierced flesh. Next are the glasses on either side of where the canter once sat; first she smashes Vera’s, then hers. As each piece of glass collides with the unmovable surfaces Joan feels a wave of satisfaction crest against her burning chest.

 

“You’re behaving like an animal! This is why they always leave you Joan - first that pregnant girl, then your deputy! You frighten them, you are too harsh, too coarse - they are dainty, weak women who want your protection but you always end up destroying them! You smother them!”

 

“N-no,” Joan sobs. She shoves her father out of the way and grasps the clear fishbowl in both hands. “No Vera l-loves me, she said that she did! So did Jianna! I know love, it is not a weakness! I did not frighten them, I love them!” Joan cries.

 

“You do not know love Joan. I have ensured that, I built you in my image so that even if you were tempted by such weakness, you would remember your teachings and resist it. We are not creatures who love. We are so much more than that, Joan. You destroy them because some part of you recognizes them for what they truly are and recognizes what _you_ truly are. We are gods among mortals and we are destined to rise above emotion, why can’t you see that?” he shouts. “You could never understand could you? Perhaps you are as weak and pathetic as they are, that is why you have always been drawn to them. To weak women who need protection,” he spits.

 

The fishbowl collides with the floor with an unparalleled, purposeful force. Joan does not want to see the tiny creature inside suffer, she wishes it a quick and merciful death. The shards of glass slice it in half before it has the chance to suffocate; Joan is envious of it. Her heaving chest burns with the burden of her bleeding heart, drawing breath is difficult, everything around her is hazy, she slides to the ground and barely notices the bite of the broken glass against her knees.

 

“You weren't like this when Mama was alive,” she whispers.

 

“What did you say?” Her father kneels down on the ground next to her and grasps her shoulders, she can feel the blood and oxygen being cut off to her muscles as he squeezes hard.

 

“You changed when she died. I don't know what happened to my father, but both of my parents left me years ago. You are not my father, you are a shell of that man.”

 

Joan looks him in the eye and sees so much of herself being reflected. The pain, the anger, the love, poorly disguised as indifference. She finally understands.

 

“I don’t need you anymore,” she says, and with those words, she feels a weight come off of her chest.

 

“Me leaving will not change what you have done. It will not change how Vera has reacted. She is not coming back Joan,” he hisses.

 

“You’re wrong. She is coming back, she said that she is,” Joan says with conviction.

 

“If she does not?” her father challenges.

 

Joan falters. “I cannot change what I have done, but I...I trust Vera’s promise. I trust her,” she says.

 

Her father’s hands fly off of her shoulders and he regards her with disgust.

 

“You will fail, you are nothing without me Joan, _nothing_.” His voice fades until it becomes a faint echo and then at last, nothing.

 

Joan remains on the floor, grounded by the mess that she has made and the pain that she has caused herself. It feels fitting, almost cathartic, to be forced to stare her disarray in the eye and accept it for what it is. She feels nothing as her eyes sweep over the lifeless body of her goldfish; he had been a mercy killing. She falls into a hazy trance, where she knows nothing but the pins and needles in her legs, the twitching of her hands, and the deep ache in her lonely heart. Time becomes irrelevant as Joan feels herself become a statue in her own home. It feels like she is drowning, sinking down to the bottomless ocean, and yet she is oddly at peace with it.

 

Warm, trembling hands cup either side of her face and Vera’s panicked eyes swim into view. Joan gasps, her lungs contract painfully as she surfaces and sensation rushes back to her every nerve.

 

“Joan! Joan, what happened?” Vera is checking her for any fatal injuries and doing her very best to drag her over to one of the dining chairs.

 

Joan’s legs protest loudly as Vera’s impressive upper body strength forces Joan to stand and hobble over to a chair. Vera carefully seats Joan and begins to yank at her trousers.

 

“Y-you’re bleeding,” Vera observes. She removes the offending garment and lets out a shuddering sigh of relief when she sees that the cuts on Joan’s knees are relatively shallow. She bows her head in Joan’s lap and cries, “Thank goodness. Oh god Joan, I thought-”

 

Joan’s hand lands on Vera’s head. “I’m alright,” she says through gritted teeth. She is not alright, she has not been alright in years. Not since her mother died. Not since her father began to hit her. Not since Jianna died. Not since Vera walked into her life to unearth years worth of buried pain and love. What she is, is considerably _closer_ to being alright now that Vera is here.

 

Vera lifts her head and cups Joan’s face again. “Come, let’s get you showered and in bed, hmm?”

 

Joan turns her head to nuzzle one of Vera’s hands. “Will you stay?” she asks in a small, hopeful voice.

 

Vera nods feverently. “Always, Joan. I will stay with you always.”

 

 


	27. Understanding

It’s a full moon tonight, and the bright, eerie glow lights up Joan’s porcelain skin and makes her look like a goddess laying in her domain. The silver of her hair, which more and more is dominating the rich black, almost sparkles as it falls around her elegant face in silken waves. 

 

Vera watches over Joan as she sleeps. She catalogues the steady rise and fall of her broad chest, the warm puffs of breath that leave her aristocratic nostrils, the softness in her muscles as they sink down into the mattress. Vera’s arm around Joan’s middle tightens, and she feels Joan wiggle back into her embrace in response, Joan exhales softly, and she falls in love with this woman all over again.  

 

The shower had done Joan some good, had calmed her. Vera had noticed how the colour had returned to her cheeks as she allowed Vera to wash her, and then brush the tangles out of her thick hair. The formidable woman had been like putty in her hands, a far cry from the usually restrained, controlled woman. There had been a vulnerability in allowing Vera to care for her tonight that had surpassed every time that they’d made love and Vera’s stint as her live-in nurse. Vera had noted the parallels between caring for Joan in this way, and how Joan had cared for Vera the night of her mother’s death, yet had felt comforted by the knowledge of how far they’d come since that fateful night. 

 

Vera’s lips connect the faint freckles of Joan’s shoulder and neck. The action causes Joan to stir and turn around in Vera’s arms. 

 

“Go back to sleep,” Vera whispers. 

 

Joan reaches up with a tentative hand to play with the hair falling in front of Vera’s face. “You came back,” she remarks. It’s the first thing that Joan has said to her since she had allowed Vera to lead her upstairs to the bathroom. 

 

Vera grasps Joan’s hand and brings it to her lips. “I understand why you did it Joan. I may not like it...but I understand.” 

 

“You do?” Joan asks hopefully. 

 

“I do because I,” Vera pauses to press her lips firmly to Joan’s knuckles, “What I did to my moth-”

 

“Vera no, I will not allow you to dwell on that,” Joan insists. There is more authority to her tone than there has been all night. 

 

“I don’t dwell on it, I just...I wanted to do that for so long. So many years. I used to fantasize about coming home to find her dead and how much better my life would be then. I used to feel guilty about it and now that it’s actually done,” she lets out a shaky sigh, “I don’t feel guilty at all. I feel like it was the right thing.” 

 

Joan nods her understanding. “It was Vera, it was the right thing.You took the right course of action.” 

 

“I was upset about Gambaro not because I actually mourned her, but because I was, I  _ am, _ so afraid that you’ll go down for it and...and Joan I couldn’t forgive myself if you ended up in prison. And…,” she hesitates, “part of me wishes that I had been able to do it myself. And that frightens me Joan, she’s the second person that I’ve wanted to kill, and I don’t know what that makes me. Does that make me sick?” she whispers. 

 

“It makes you human Vera. We are capable of a great many things, both loving and cruel. Wanting to see justice brought to two women who tormented you, that does not negate the good that you have done,” Joan asserts. “You are so full of love, so full of kindness, none of that gets lost because of your darker desires.” Her thumb traces Vera’s full lower lip. “And I assure you that there is no possible way for anyone to suspect that I had anything to do with her untimely demise,” she says, and Vera’s heart swells at little at hearing the signature arrogance in her tone. 

 

Vera leans in and presses her lips against Joan’s. It’s hard, sloppy, and broken up by Vera’s sobs. “You know that I will help corroborate your story right? I couldn’t forgive myself if something happened to you,” Vera murmurs. “I’ll protect you Joan.” 

 

Joan gathers Vera in her arms and nuzzles her shoulder. “I do not require protection,” she insists stubbornly. Vera is who requires protection. That is  _ her _ job, and Joan will see to it gladly. 

 

“You do,” Vera gently argues, “as do I. We both do, like you said Joan, it’s human.” Her hands run up and down Joan’s long back and she delights at the feeling of her lover’s bare skin against her, at the sheer, wonderful intimacy of it. “I promised that I wasn’t giving up on you and I meant that, I’m so sorry if you thought that I’d left for good.” Vera pulls back slightly to pepper Joan’s forehead with kisses. “I just needed to deal with how I was feeling.” 

 

Joan nods in understanding. “You’re not...frightened of me though?” Joan asks in a tiny voice. She cannot quite meet Vera’s eyes. 

 

“A little, yes,” Vera says honestly. “I’m frightened by what you’re capable of, but I’m not frightened that you’d ever hurt me, not knowingly. I know that you love me, and I love you, this, us...I don’t want to see us fall apart. I won’t let us fall apart.” 

 

“You still won’t let me...destroy you? Destroy us?” Joan asks tentatively. 

 

“Never. No way,” Vera holds Joan to her a little tighter, “I won’t let you get rid of me easily,” she says and she offers Joan a smile for the first time since yesterday morning. 

 

“I don’t want to get rid of you,” Joan says in a rush. 

 

“I know,” Vera says gently. “Joan, about the mess downstairs…”Joan stiffens in her arms but Vera holds on still. “You don’t have to explain it to me, but will you let me know if you’re okay now?” 

 

Joan nods. “Yes, I’m…,” she falters, “I will be.” 

 

“I’ll help you clean it in the morning,” Vera offers. It’s a truce. A statement of mutual understanding between two healing women. 

 

Vera brushes her lips against Joan’s forehead and Joan feels something warm and soft pass between them; she feel safe here, in Vera’s arms, basking in the love of the very woman she had sworn to never let in, to never trust. 

 

“I would like that,” Joan says. 

 

Vera’s hands map out the lingering scars on Joan’s back and a wave of deep, unwavering love crests against Joan’s worn heart. There is still a sense of worry that weighs on Joan’s mind at the knowledge that Vera has all that she could ever need to destroy her, but it is not as pressing as it once was. Her back is exposed, her heart wide open, and in this moment, all that Joan can do, all that she desires, is to cling to her belief in Vera’s love and devotion to anchor them both to their fragile connection. 

 

Vera’s lips meet Joan’s brow once again and Joan can feel the younger woman smiling against her. “Good. Then you can get to work on listing my home for sale. I was promised to be moved in here quite expediently and I know you to be a woman of your word.” 

 

Joan returns Vera’s smile and lifts her head to press her lips to Vera’s mouth. “That, my dear, is a promise that I intend to keep,” she vows.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, thank you, thank you to all my faithful readers. I greatly appreciate your readership, your feedback, your excitement, and your kind words of encouragement. 
> 
> Thank you to NoxIrradiata for her encouragement and insight. To Ifitbelove for her edits and insight. And to Sick_lil_saint for her encouragement. 
> 
> This certainly isn't the end of Joan and Vera's adventures, but I will be taking a brief hiatus in the coming weeks to enjoy my very exciting RL for a bit. :) 
> 
> Much love to all you "freaks" out there. xo


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